City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Worester City Council. If you can, if you can please stand for the pledge of allegiance and the style of banner.

I By the dawn early light, what so proudly we held at the twilight lasting who brought stripes and bright stars through the perrow. fight. For the part we watch were so gallently streaming and the rockets. The bombs were singing in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spangled yet? For the land of the free and the home of the brave. Roll call. Councelor Bergman

here. Councelor Bada here. Councelor Cono here. Councelor Rolo here. Councelor King here. Councelor Mitra here. Councelor Aada here. Councelor Rivera here. Councelor Rosen here. Councelor Tumi here. And Mayor Petty

here. We have approval of the minutes of January 27th. Those in favor oppose so ordered. Public participation and person may not speak for no more than two minutes on any item appearing on the agenda. Mr. Clerk. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, rule 39, items of public interest at every meeting of the city council on the public participation portion of the agenda. The chair shall recognize any person seeking such recognition for the purpose of addressing the council on any eligible items on the agenda for meeting both in person and remotely. Any person who wishes to speak on more than one agenda item shall combine their testimony on all items to one appearance at the microphone. The item for uh the time for speaking shall not exceed two minutes for anyone speaker or 30 minutes for all speakers. Rule 40 petitions. On the first occasion, any petition appears on the city council agenda. The prime petitioner may address the city council for no more than three minutes on the subject of their petition. Here's

your name residence. Item number getting the volume on. Oh, there we go. Uh Fred Nason Worcester. Just want to remind people that it's Black History Month. Um 8.7 A and B. With all the problems that we have got from the storm, I think there are a lot of sidewalks that still need some action. And these are not necessarily private citizens. There are spaces in around Worcester that are public area that are owned by the city that still are kind of lagging behind. So I just want to remind people that you cannot be fining anybody for a not an unshoveled uh sidewalk if the city isn't going to do its own work. Uh, oh, that's that's right. Um, 8.30A. Just curious, what kind of more taxes uh or shall I say not taxes, but money is going to be borrowed uh for the DCO? What kind of special tax district are they um asking for money for now? Just curious.

Thank you. The next speaker name res item number

Abby Melero. She her resident district 4. I'll start with 10A. Rent control. It's good. You know, it's good to have some rent control here, right? I want it now. All right. 10 C office of housing stability. I want that too. It's good to have that for the city, you know. It would be good for the city. Okay. Um All right. 10 F. I spent a long day in court today watching the trial of Etel Haj, a former member of this council. Did I remind you? And now Ashley got community service. Someone who's already serving the community.

Edel still on trial. More to begin tomorrow. We we want a citizen review board, you know. Citizen review board. Yeah. I ask for it like every week. Every week I ask for accountability. Every week I'm here, you know, speaking on the same items. Every week I come here to speak on the same items. And I'm gonna keep coming. you know, he'll keep seeing me every week, you know, speak on the same items. Accountability and what side of history are you on? Let me ask that question. What side of history are you on? What side of history are you on? Okay. Thank you. Hello. Uh, my name is Gary Hunter. I'm in District Five. I think pretty you probably remember that. Um, first thing I'd like to do is thank the mayor and the city manager for making a strong statement about ICE not being wanting in our community. I thought it was very good and I appreciate it. I want to talk about 8 8.7 and AMB. Um, as you know, last week I mentioned how hard the the city plow people worked and they worked hard yet we can't. It just seems like the city's having trouble handling that much snow. U, it could be worse. I think maybe we could look at um, there's got to be a better system or more people. I know you can only put so many people out on the streets, but there's got to be a better system to get

this snow so that people can pass each other on these streets. As far as 813, I know our police chief uh has made many changes to um how things are done in the police department, but what we still need is some accountability. You wonder why uh you have a um people leaving. I know if I was a police officer in all this questions about what happened with the DOJ report, I wouldn't want to work in this department. No wonder why they're leaving. We need more accountability and we need a civil review board. There are people that ran for office said they would look at it and and get a report. You don't need a report. I'm looking at this agenda. What is on? You're here for the people of the city of Worcester to do their business. What here is doing the city business in this agenda? Last week the meeting was less than an hour. What are you doing? Why aren't the more important things like civil review board? Are you afraid to

Thank you. make a vote on it. Thank you very much. Okay, we have uh two people online. Um, do do Mark first and the three people online. Do Fred last because he's got a petition. Mark Andrews. Want to meet the resident now. Please state your name, city of residence, and the item you're calling on.

Uh, Mark Andrews, Worcester, Mass. Um, I want to speak on the u um agenda item 8.7. Uh, mostly about a well b actually. uh the snow plowing operations uh during the uh most recent uh large snowstorm January 23rd to 26. Um I'm not criticizing I I know the plow drivers have a very difficult job. I actually spoke to one of them uh as I was out shoveling. Um but it's regarding to fire hydrants and I did email council Rivera about this last week. Um we have a fire hydrant at the corner of uh my street. I live at on Ledgewood Lanes, the corner of Ledgewood and and Stone House. And uh it was buried quite deeply uh on the Monday after the storm

and uh so I I shoveled it out. Um took me about 15 minutes to find it and next day it was buried again. I I had to shovel out again. So, I I guess I'm a little just have some questions about what is does the city have a plan for what to do with fire hydrants in a storm? Uh I noticed there are markers on some of them uh some of the main streets. Um is it possible to have markers so that the plow drivers can see where they are?

Uh I can imagine it would take the fire department a long time to find them. Um, so do we have a plan uh for them as far as markers or clearing them? Um, if so, what is the plan? Um, you know, I hope that we'd be a little proactive. I would um I don't know what the fire department has to do in a situation like that. Um, if they had to take as long as as I did to find it, wouldn't be a very good situation. So, thank you. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next speaker is Natalie Gibson. Share with the resident now.

Hi, good evening. Um, I do have to make a comment to the last person that spoke. I do recall that uh councelor Tumi stated they can't put markers on the hydrants because it was a safety issue and at the time she said that I was kind of wondering what the safety issue was cuz she didn't say. I think that is a great idea to have those markers so we know where they are. Um, I'm speaking on I believe it was uh 87 8.7 uh mostly B. Actually, doesn't matter if it was B. So, I've lived here for 19 years on Fourth Street. It's a hill. Um, a lot of us are always complaining about um the snow plows and having the the the hill plowed and we can't just wait until there's one inch of snow. when we are higher at a higher level than the rest of the city. I mean, there are people that are higher than than I am, but you can't wait until there's that much snow on the hills to then turn around to try and plow it. And then we are waiting hours upon hours for then a sander or a salt truck to come and put down product so that people aren't sliding up and down the hill. This brings me to Mil Street. Why didn't we remove the flex post? because now you have residents that are actually shoveling out from their driveway all the way to the street. So that includes the bike lane and sometimes even part of the um the parking lane. So, why did we do all this to turn around and make all of these residents have to shovel out that much snow on Mil Street because we didn't remove the flex post and we didn't have the Bobcat come through and and uh or whatever other kind of piece of equipment that you can use to um to open up Mil Street better. And we need to have all of our streets widened. We're going into three weeks of this storm and

even on my streets that's part of it that two cars can't go by. So I I I just have to say we really have to do better that this is 19 years of this is is a lot. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. The last speaker is Fred Taylor. Um uh there's a petition u request council recognize Carter Woodson and the black and the other black artists musicians, educators, athletes, inventors, and activists for the contributions and success stories. Good good evening everyone. Can you hear me? Yes.

Good evening. Happy Black History Month everyone. Uh on this second week of Black History Month, uh the Worcester branch of the NACP extends warm wishes to everyone for a meaningful and joyous Black History Month. While it's often said that Black History is celebrated 365 days a year, this month holds a significance as it commemorates uh two significant milestones. 100th anniversary of Dr. Carter G. Woodson's founding of Black History Week and it's also the 50th anniversary of the official recognition of Black History Month. Uh these are pivotal moments in our history. It reminds us of the ongoing contributions and rich legacy of black community. Um Dr. Carter G. Woodson also envisioned a time when our history would not only be acknowledged but also honored extending from a week into a month of reflection and celebration. It's hard to imagine how he would have felt knowing that his foundational work sparked a broader recognition of black history and black achievements and culture. While it's important to acknowledge the struggles and challenges we face, um we also must uplift the remarkable triumphs, stories of triumph. Uh this month, let us focus on the incredible contributions of not only black artists, but musicians, athletes, inventors, educators, and activists who have enriched our lives and shaped our world. Uh, as we celebrate the Black History Month, uh, let's come together as a community, not only to remember our past, but it took took forward to the future. I look forward to the future filled with hope and progress. Uh, join us in honoring the legacy of those who paved the way and continue to inspire us today. Together, we can uplift and celebrate these diverse narratives that make our community vibrant. Happy Black History Month. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, I can file that. All those in favor post. So ordered. Um, councelor Bourbon. Just want to clarify something. Uh, one of the speakers that indicated that last week's meeting was about an hour long. Uh, that's not my recollection. I confirm with the clerk we ended after 10. It was three and a half hours long. So, I just want to make sure the listening public doesn't think that every week we don't have long meetings because sometimes we do. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. So, going back to the agenda. Petitions. petition may speak up for three minutes. First time appears on the agenda. First one is 7 A refer the public works committee. All those in favor oppose so ordered. 7B 7H refer to traffic and parking. All those in favor oppose. So ordered. 7 I set a hearing date for February 24th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. for a condo location on Kingsbury Street. Those in favor oppose. So ordered. or the manager's calendar transmitting information communication with the appointment of Patrick Low to the board of health. Um we place it on file. All those in favor post so ordered. I just want to thank him for his service. Next item up is 8.3A recommended adoption of a salary ordinance with the Department of Health and Human Services 2026 budget. Motion is to advertise proposed ordinance. Roll call.

Councelor Bergman. Yes. Council Lauder. Yes. Councilor Econom. Yes. Council Po. Yes. Councilor King. Yes. Council Mitra. Yes. Councelor Aada. Yes. Councelor Rivera. Yes. Councelor Rosen. Yes. Council Tumi. Yes. To Mary Petty.

Yes. 8.4A. Transmitting information communication rel to the status of US Department of Housing urban technology funding. Anybody? We can send that to ED. That goes down every year. This this year wasn't too bad for one of them, but okay. Senator Ed. Those in favor of post. So ordered. Next up is transmitting information communication relatively update on the fiscal year 2026 uh grant making process for the Wister out council. We send that to ED. All those in favor oppose. So ordered. Here we go. Okay. 8.7A and 8.7B we can take collectively. Council Okono.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I just I want to just open up some of my remarks too and I I know I've said it before on this council floor that I'm grateful for the men and women who are out there doing the job, the members of our team who are, you know, answering emails, the 311 communications, getting word out to various other departments um for the needs that we need. Is there room for improvement? Of course there is. There always is. Um, do we have the manpower? I don't know if we have the manpower or not. You know that that's something that we need to discuss. Um, but I do feel in this conversation something that's been missing of recent conversations on this is our responsibility. Our responsibility as residents and businesses of the city. I I spent many hours in the storm there of late January um circumventing the city during the storm on Sunday, during the storm on Monday, then again Tuesday and Wednesday. And it it's it's disingenuous for us to blame DPW for the misgivings of some when they're shoveling their cars out and they're throwing it over their shoulder into the street, when they're snowblowing their driveway or their sidewalks and they're throwing it into the street. Um, so I I do want to make sure that that's heard. And you know, we have a parking ban. There's a declared parking ban during these storms. Are people following the parking ban? Do we have to look at the parking ban? You know, these are questions we need to look at. Um, we offer our garages downtown um for parking to help eliminate some of the

the traffic that's on the streets that are parked on the on the street so we can get to curb to curb. Um, and again, I'm not going to say it's a perfect system. I've had many conversations with the commissioner, with the city manager, with the city manager and commissioner. Um, but with all that, Mr. Chairman, if I can if I could take a moment to ask some some questions of the commissioner, is that allowable? um through the chair to the commissioner and thank you too for doing the work that you're doing and and um I know you're doing the best you can with the manpower and the tools that you have available to you as as we've gone through these storms. How do you feel our manpower has been? Have we had the manpower? Do you feel there's something that needs to be changed in that system um for manpower whether it's public our employees or private contractors? Uh through the chair, if I could start with an overarching uh comment just of thanks and appreciation to the DPW team. Very proud of the work that they did and their sacrifices. They've worked tirelessly over the past two and a half weeks to address that historic storm. Uh we've got more than 20 employees that during that storm they worked between 70 and 100 hours uh during the week. Uh thanks to our private contractors uh we had nearly 300 that showed up for that storm. Uh thank you to Mass DOT that sent six of their large vehicles to help us out during that storm. To the Worcester Police Department for the help of enforcing the parking bans. Uh and just as importantly, I'm grateful and thankful to our residents for their patience and understanding. So, to the counselor's question, uh, we could

always use more, right? We've got, uh, during that big storm, we had some 300 private contractors that showed up. My understanding is that that is historically less than we've had out on the streets. Uh, some of the challenges that the private contractors are seeing, just like we're having a hard time finding drivers, they're having a hard time finding drivers. uh contractors who historically had six or eight plows on the street with us this year only have two or three or four. So the number of uh qualified drivers has has gone down. Uh and that's something that we're finding also within the DPW. Uh credit to the city manager and the leadership for uh creating a CDL training academy within the city. So, we can take some of our folks who don't have their CDL license, we can train them to be able to drive the bigger trucks. Um, so to your question specifically, yes, we could always use more. We are going to be looking at our union contract to determine uh how we can incentivize folks to come and help us during those storms. Um, so we could always use more.

Thank you, Commissioner. And and again, I've said it before, too. Bravo to the whole team. Um, and I just want people to understand, too, because it it it all relates. If it's a day when there's sanitation pickup scheduled for that day and we have a snowstorm through the chair to the ch to the commissioner, is it not true that if if people call out for their sanitation duties that men and women from operations need to pull be pulled off to do sanitation work through the chair. You're absolutely correct. So every day we have eight trucks on the road that are collecting curbside trash. So that means we have eight drivers and eight laborers. If any of those folks call in sick, if they've got vacation time, if they're otherwise unavailable, we have to pick up the trash every day. So what that requires us to do, we've got days where we are taking eight people from streets to drive those sanitation trucks. If we have eight people driving sanitation trucks, we don't have eight people to drive our plows. So, um, on days where people are not available for that sanitation duty, uh, we are take taking folks from the the streets

and and commissioner, I know you've only been here about a full year now, right? Correct. Thereabouts. It'll be a year next week. There you go. So, congratulations. Thank you.

Um, and I know when you came into the position, too, there were a lot of um, things that weren't operating properly, and I'm going to I'm going to jump on the brining system. uh was not operating properly, was not being dealt with in a proper manner. We have now writed the ship. We have a state-of-the-art system. Um I know I know that as I said before, I've been to one of the training exercises and you can see in here the enthusiasm in our staff wanting to have a brining system that will actually work and do as uh specified. And I thank UMass um out in Amherst there for coming in and giving us the the training. The guy was phenomenal. And it's important for people to understand not every situation calls for brining. And that storm too um the big storm, historic storm, a top 10 storm. Um a storm that we haven't had in many, many years. And I feel as New Englanders, we've kind of lost our our touch in dealing with storms like this. Um, the asphalt was very cold. So, the worst thing we probably could have done was to add brine to that system because it would create that layer of ice, quite frankly. Um, so it's important for people to understand not every situation is a brining situation. And I know our team is in the process now of being trained. Um I think it's been rolled out in limited uh manner and from what you have shown me what a difference and I think uh as that's called for I think it will make a big difference here in our city. Um Mr. Chairman if I may in the form of a motion I think there's a number of needs I think we need to look at here in the city.

Um in the form of a motion, Mr. Chairman, I ask um that we look at these various areas in our DPW public works. Number one, as we discussed earlier, manpower. What What are our needs? Do we have the means? Do we have the need? Do we need more? Do we need less? Is it important for us to look at cross trainining other employees to help fill the void as it relates to snow and ice operations? If we are going to be working with less staff, we need to look at equipment. Do we have the proper equipment? Do we have to look at instead of having three trucks going down Gold Star Boulevard that it's only one truck with a wing plow or one truck with a belly plow? These are some of the things we need to start looking at. So, I would ask and again in the form of a motion um from our commissioner to bring forward some of these needs here in our city. Do we need to further train our employees on plowing, on how to get to curb to curb, how to stack snow in a corner, if that's the case, how to spread material when the time comes to be spreading material? Um, how to calibrate our our salters, our brining machines. Do we need more snow blowing equipment? Are our storage sheds up to par. We have sheds down on East Central Street in Albany Street. We have a shed up off Clock Street. I know the one on Clock Street, just looking at it, it's it's not in good health. And I would venture to say that it probably needs to be augmented, but something like that we need to look at.

Do we need to look at temporary uh sanding and salt sheds around the city to cut down on sand salting equipment, spreading equipment from traversing the city to to collect to fill their trucks to get back out into the neighborhoods in a more timely fashion? And again, do we need to look at the parking ban? Is the parking ban is it working? Is it working the way it's intended to work? Are we doing all we can to notify people in a timely ma manner? Give them the options um to to move their vehicles or get their vehicles off the streets so we can plow uh curb to curb. Uh you know, is it something we need to look at on how we do this remotely even in different areas of the city? I know it's a difficult thing. We don't have a lot of parking garages or public parking spaces on the outskirts of the city, but when you look, especially in the three- decker neighborhoods, I would venture to guess that's where a lot of our problems come from. Um, and is there a way to augment some some parking for them to get off the street? And then again sir uh Mr. chairman process. I think you always have to look at process. You always have to look inwards uh to see if we're holding ourselves accountable. We are coming into budget season. You know, when we're looking at equipment, it'd be great to have a list of needs from DPW. And then I think we also have to look at our process. Is our process up to par? Are we calling Are we calling the crews

out early enough? Are we set up ahead of time? Um, are we are we out there long enough after a storm? And I know, as you said, Commissioner, the men and women were working over 30 hours during that storm. It it's unreasonable for anybody to call at 8:00 p.m. on a Monday evening of that storm when it was still snowing out complaining about the condition of this street. I find that unreasonable. That's not a reasonable call. Um, so I think we have to work to together collectively to get to the root of the problem if there is a problem to make sure that our our crews have the tools that they need to do the job um to the level that they expect themselves to be doing the job. I make that in a form of a motion.

Take those collectively. All those move. Thank you, Commissioner. Favor post. So ordered it down. down to the fall by John Fazole and Moor Petty.

Thank you, Commissioner. Congratulations on one year anniversary. But uh I just want to say in general we did a pretty good job. You put in some perspective we haven't got two feet of snow. I think in your report I think you might have said on the radio um the 10th largest snowstorm we've had in the city's history and so she go so it's going to take us days you know to come out of that you know if not a week. And uh so I just want to say thank you to the DPW workers that are out there the contractors. want to thank the governor and do put some of the extra equipment in. Um, you know, doesn't mean we like council com doesn't mean we can't get better on other I'm sure you learned a lot over the last uh couple storms what you'd have to do better the next time. There are some streets that do get missed or they're not done properly, but uh and that's something we can work on with the supervisor. You had another term here too which I I know you had seven supervisors and you had another group of managers out there too, inspectors.

Okay. Let me ask you, how new are those people? Because right now you had turnover. One time we needed well over 100 employees. I think you're down maybe still need like 50 or something, 60 to make it work. Uh through the chair, are you speaking directly about the inspector team? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would venture to say that about 40% are new employees.

Yeah. So they're learning too as they go through the city and understand what they have to do for the next storm. Um, so I just want to just tell them to hang in there and I think Council Clomo's odds are pretty good. Uh, because when I read these reports, I was like, "Oh my lord, what did we do over the last four years?" And uh, we didn't staff enough. We didn't buy enough equipment or let things go. And uh, and the things that I noticed, I did notice I drove around the cities and all the two storms here. I did notice people were actually shoveling their snow into the streets where they didn't have to. I understand some of these neighborhoods are pretty tight and you have no place to put the snow. I sought to get that one, you know, and uh and also what I didn't know too is some of the streets and there were reasons for it, but if we can we should do curb to curb, right? It's because a lot of streets weren't done curb to curb. Um some were done, you know, four feet out or three feet out. Maybe it was too late to get to curb to curb. I'm not sure how what the protocol on that is.

Through the chair, our goal is to uh plow curb to curb. the night of the storm that Sunday, the the big storm, uh the city manager and I, we had the opportunity to drive around the city and we went to Main Street where there were no cars on the street. We noticed that the the main street was plowed curb to curb because there were no cars in the way. There were no impediments.

So, it has to be cars. So, when you tow 450 cars, you have over 700 tickets. That means people aren't paying attention to this and to the uh snow band in these streets, the parking. Correct. That's correct. And through the chair, uh, Mr. Mr. Mayor, the the last storm we had on February 6th, the police department rode over 1,000 tickets, and we were only able to, uh, to tow 260 cars, which meant that we had 760 cars that were violating the the parking ban that slowed our progress through the city. Okay. That's And that was the six the last storm, correct? February 6th.

February 6th. Okay. And that slows down process. Is there a better way? I know we use our parking department, correct? For enforcement, and they work with the Wister Police. Is there a better Are we missing something here? Should they be out there in front of the Wister Police Department and ticketing people so the Wister PD comes in and it's smoother? I'm not sure the right answer is commissioner

through the chair. Uh that's something that we're looking at is how to better better enforce better inform the residents so that they can move their cars. Uh better a better way to improve the capacity of cars that are towed that need to be towed. Again, that left 760 cars in our way. Uh in a th000 tickets, that's a thousand cars that could have been uh moved in accordance with the the parking ban. And I think council call mentioned this before the idea of setting expectations.

You know the surrounding towns were setting expectations well a week after the sale and uh I know our system was down so that we couldn't set expectations even though you put a lot of press releases out went to the paper maybe on Facebook but a lot of people don't have that where the phone thing we had 50 thou I don't know how many people we had signed up but we had thousands of people signed up. So, this managing expectations somehow we get into the once we get that new system up and running, telling people where we are in the process, what they should be doing, moving their cars, uh, and how we're going to go back and wiring the roads, whatever we have to do to tell people, uh, because we're still getting some complaints in trying to get rid of the snow miles that out on the corners of the street. People can't pull uh, can't see pulling on the main drags. So, um, and the one thing I noticed, this is the first time I got complaints on this, was people yelling at the plow drivers, like I actually get complaints on this. Like, I never seen that before. So, I know people are frustrated. I get it. We got two feet of snow, but these plow drivers don't set the policy on how to polish street coming from the commissioner. instance. So when they don't put the brine down, they don't put the salt down. Um it's not because because they've been told not to do a certain thing because it doesn't work. And uh but u but I just want to again thank you and I there's a couple questions I have. How many piece we have 368 pieces of equipment on the road another major storm there and in the in the heyday we probably had well over 400. I want to say 430 440. So we're short power drivers. We're short equipment too. So, which makes a huge difference. So, people should realize that. So, when you get a big ST and you stay here, I think, forget this, right? I learned a lot in this reports. Plan A and getting out in the salt and uh and sanding when to do that. So, it takes three hours through the whole city if you have hazardous conditions, icy conditions. Did I get that right

through the chair? That's that's approximately correct. But our brine system will allow us if the conditions are correct uh pavement temperatures above 15 degrees, wind speeds uh less than 50 miles an hour, no uh precipitation anticipated, we can go out with this brine system and we can pre-treat the roads days in advance. So that's what we're looking forward to. Otherwise, it does take several hours in six hours if you go into plan A. Correct. That's that's if you're not towing. Everything is perfect. That's correct. So six hours. So you're talking 8 to nine 10 hours depending on the conditions.

Correct. So people Yeah. And uh so there a lot of challenges. There's no question about that. Make sure there's one question I had which I read this. I didn't understand what it meant. Salt spreaders have not been calibrated in years. The UMass Transportation Center is scheduled to teach the DPW employees how to calibrate spreaders. What does that mean? I understand on the face what it means, but

through the chair. Uh the salt trucks, they have uh a slle gate on the back that opens and closes and depending upon where that gate is set, that tells the truck how much salt to put on the roads. There is a prescribed uh recommendation for how many pounds of salt should be uh per lane mile. I think it's 250 pounds. If your slleg gate is open too high, you can be putting out more salt than is necessary. Those should be calibrated so that each truck is set to where it's putting out that 250 pounds per lane mile. That has not been done in years. So the trucks that are going out there salting, they could either be putting down not enough salt or too much salt. So we identified that and we have uh coordinated with the UMass Transportation Center to come out, train our folks how to be able to do that so that we're not wasting material.

Okay. I would think that would been part of the process for years back. You have to you don't have to call me on the brine. When does that versus the choride? Um what's the temperature on each that you can use it at? Is there a temp through the chair? It's roughly 15 to 20° pavement temperature. So although it may be warmer outside, it's the pavement temperature. So first thing in the morning, it may be 32 degrees, but that pavement temperature from overnight could be down at 15° or lower. And what do you use? Which one would you use if it's below 15 degrees? Is there a difference? So, the grime can be used at any time

through the chair. If you combine the two, you can get a a lower temperature where it's effective. But uh when we had the UMass Transportation Center come out and talk to us about liquid deicers, what they told us was that uh when the pavement temperature is below 15° like it was during the the heavy snowstorm that we had, uh that the purpose of brine is to prevent snow from sticking to the pavement. So when it's below 15°, it's not going to stick. So we didn't put down a lot of pre-treatment. We used it judiciously and selectively so that we weren't wasting that material.

Okay. So, I do support council com orders and uh trying to figure out where where do you want to be at next year? You got the budget coming up. You got to figure out what pieces of equipment let us know what you need. Uh then you're always going to have an issue appears in every city in town in the state for no drivers. So, this is going to be a major issue coming down in the future. So, and one thing I did notice potholes. I know we got complaints before the winter started, but I saw so I've hit so many potholes and you sort of have explained it to me that we had six feet of

frost frost six feet. So now when it warms up, it's going to break the street open and uh then we could freeze again and it's going to go back and forth over the next two months like this. So my point is in the form of not we need to plan how you're going to do problems because they're everywhere and I noticed new ones popping up uh throughout the city in the last uh two storms and uh so just ask that you look at that how much fun you're going to need how you going to respond to it uh because I think people's expectations is that we're going to fill the potholes and you have to wait for certain weather conditions in order to fill those potholes correct so you couldn't go out tonight and do potholes or tomorrow morning

uh through the chair all our forces for example this evening and through tomorrow, all our forces are out clearing snow. I get that. But once that snow is gone, we have the ability and we do send out our our hot boxes. They are trucks that have a heated box so that it keeps that asphalt at a at a warm temperature, an operating temperature. Um, so when we have that opportunity, some were called in and brought to our attention. We go out and we fill those.

Yeah. I just want to thank you and uh look forward to working with you in the future and making this a better department. You've done a great job in the one year you've been there and trying to get some of the equipment you did get in order. Some of it came through for you which I was surprised we got it that quickly. Some of the equipment you come in and whatever happened by the whatever happened to the snow melter. Do we still have We had a piece of equipment one year. It melted snow. It went on the sidewalks. It went up the street by the side. Do we still have that piece of equipment

through the chair? We do. Uh it hasn't been used in a while. Okay. uh for the following reasons. Uh it uses a lot of fuel to operate. Uh they're very slow at melting snow. So you could put in a bucket of snow and it could take minutes, 10 minutes to melt that snow and then you have to have it at a spot where you can safely discharge the melt water. Okay. Um, so what we've been doing with our snow removal operations, we have a site where we've been hauling to uh and we're piling that up and I suspect that snow pile will be there through June. I just want to thank you. Thank you DBW workers and contractors. And thank you. Hopefully the snow abates tonight quickly. And uh

No, no, I was going to say through the chair, it is currently snowing. the the heaviest snowfall is expected between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. So, should the council meeting end before that, please be careful driving home. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Folk 3.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And uh through you, to the administration, the commissioner, I do not stand here tonight to criticize. Uh I am a realist. I know how hard you work. I know how hard your crew works. Uh I've been in politics for uh over 25 years and uh I have seen the work that your crew has done whether it be snow removal or uh regular DPW trash pickup so on so forth and and uh I have nothing but high accolades but why I'm standing and the couple of examples that I'll bring to uh is some of the frustration that you know uh exists and I hope it gives the general public we're able to educate them on the process that goes on in a huge snow snowstorm as we had uh the past week. Um saying that we have uh as as was uh mentioned earlier the plow driver, the snow inspector and then supervisors above them. Is that is that correct

through the chair? That is correct.

Okay. And uh you know, sometimes it's frustrating. Uh I I have to admit I've gotten dozens of calls uh whether they called the council office or they uh called 311 or they emailed me, texted me, and uh uh there there was frustration. I'll give you an example of uh someone that owns property uh here in the city for over 50 years. And I'll just read uh what she uh texted to me. She expressed frustration over plow operators widening roads, causing snow to discharge onto sidewalks. This is this is after she had cleared the snow and then we got a couple more inches and we sent sent them back out and then again we tried to again uh widen the street curb to curve. So this is what she's referring to causing snow to discharge onto sidewalks abudding her property that she already paid a contractor to clear. She also expressed concern over accumulation of snow at corners, including a property she owns that is a corner lot. When the snow is piled at a corner, it reaches several feet high, is solid, and requires more than a normal plow to move. obstructs pedestrians access to sidewalks and curb cuts and it appears impers uh sight lines for vehicles who now cannot see around the corner. She was ticketed uh for her property not uh being plowed that that second time and that's her frustration. She always keeps up with the snow and tries her best. And so I express that uh scenario to you and

and I and I understand it fully. Uh so again I don't tell me after hearing that what could we do any differently? Uh you know could we have could we have not ticketed properties? Uh because in all honesty, she was out there the next morning to to uh realize that that was the case that the sidewalks were back with snow on it and uh and was out there to uh you know call someone to clear it off. But I'll let you answer that. Commissioner

uh through the chair. Uh that is a city ordinance which uh is pretty straightforward. However, I would imagine that we can explore the ability to either postpone how long residents have to clear that snow because while we're out during a snowstorm, we're we're working all as hard as we can to make sure that the roads are open and accessible for emergency services especially. But as people move their cars, as people shovel out, we've inevitably got to go back and widen those roads or replplow roads. Uh, so it is that that snow doesn't have a lot of options where it goes, right? When it comes off the end of the plow, it's pushed from the center of the road to the side of the road. And then if we're widening, it's pushed onto the sidewalk or back into uh driveway opening. So that's why if there was an instance where we went back and we widen the street several days later, we would have a chase vehicle behind clearing those driveways if it was several days after. But while the snow is actively falling, while it's within 12 hours after a storm, uh there's there's I understand there's frustrations there with people that either shovel it themselves or they pay to have that snow removed. So, that's certainly something that we can look at as we are enforcing the ordinance. Is there is there an ability to uh give extra time for residents? I appreciate that because uh what was brought up to my attention too was that in the law it states 10 hours after but it but it doesn't state that you have to maintain it. you know, they they did they did after the 10 hours uh clear the snow away, but but then again, you know, I gave you this scenario and and so I appreciate your answer and again, it allows people to hear firsthand of how

the city is going about uh to deal with our snowstorm. Uh I want to I want to also uh I forgot to I want to um commend the three city council uh aids that we have in our office. They are uh very very good and and uh I I want to commend them and and compliment them on the response. They, as you know, commissioner, they uh email you quite a bit go between when we call something in and they get back to you. And I have to say, Commissioner, I want to commend you and your department because every time we have reached out to you to uh you know to look into an instance that we get calls on, you have been very responsive and I want the general public to know that. Okay. But where the frustration lies is they're calling into 311 and I'll go over that. That'll be my next example that I'll bring up. But uh they're calling in and they get no nowhere where then now they call the district council, they call the uh city council at large who they know and then it gets done when we call. So, you know, and thank God, you know, I appreciate that, but uh there's frustration when they keep calling and this is the example I'll bring up about 311. And I've I I have to admit I've I've received a lot of calls regarding 311. I hope the administration, not you, yourself, Commissioner, maybe the administration can answer uh these this one particular instance on Arur Street. Ather Street runs behind East Middle School. It's a big, you know, largely a three- decker neighborhood, tight on parking. Uh, and, uh, in this instance,

uh, a truck was a, a truck, when I say a truck, a pickup truck, uh, uh, was parked right close to an intersection of of, uh, Arthur and Palm Street and, uh, was there for two two weeks, never moved. uh and of course plowed in close to the uh intersection again. So uh it was you know less than 5t from from the intersection uh wondering why you know it wasn't ticketed or or towed away. So, she made several calls to 311 and um I'll just get get to the end of of uh what you know her dismay was when she uh looked as she was doing this through her computer. And on February 2nd at 7:35 in the morning, the response to her inquiries was and I'll just read what she uh wrote here. POSOS. I don't know what that means. Some do, but let's let's see what it means here in the city. POSOS will notify SPCOs on 22 226 26. Okay. So, that was it. And then her next response at 12:48 that same day was M270 tick tix and the ticket was closed. And from that point on, uh, the response was that the issue was closed on on that case. So there's an example of she has no idea what they mean by that. Nor do I, nor do our staff that took the call. And uh, if somebody could answer what what type of response that you know that they think the general

public could understand that, you know, I I don't know. uh through the chair. I don't know what acronyms they use at 311 myself. Um we do need to do a better job with uh with responding to the work orders that are that are generated by the 311 system. There are hundreds upon hundreds of work orders that are generated. So, we are working diligently to work through those. Um we're also looking at the ability and the capacity for ticketing and towing vehicles. It sounds like that vehicle uh was in violation of the the parking ban. Uh so that's something that it's a collaborative effort between not only the DPW and the police department and DTM, but also residents to uh adhere to the parking ban. It's put in there for a reason, not only for snow removal operations, but also for uh emergency vehicles being able to access down those roads. Uh, I know that some of those narrow streets there's concern over if we can't get a plow truck down there. If that's difficult for us, it'll also be difficult for the fire department to get some of their trucks down there. So, uh, that's why in my report I highlight the the need for adherence to the the parking bands because they are put in place for, uh, for the for the ability for the DPW to be able to remove that snow for the delivery of emergency services. And I understand the the the frustration and the challenges with having to move your car every time it snows. Um, it is inconvenient for residents, but it's it's a necessity for us to be able to do a good job and keep those roads wide open.

And Council, we got three minutes left.

I'm going to close right now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Uh, thank you. I want I appreciate your uh answering those questions and I hope the general public hears uh you loud and clear about the parking ban. Uh, one other uh, instance I I want to bring up and and commend is our police department. Uh, I wasn't aware, but through our council uh, office, uh, we're able to call uh, the police department when a I guess they handle when a sidewalk is not cleared and they have to go out and maybe site a property. And each time I called and and into the office and the aids called uh I think I believe it's officer Mulvi at the Wora Police Department. Within a couple hours uh it the the instance was uh uh addressed. I'll I'll I'll just explain a couple so the general public hear it called in. within hours uh properties on Providence Street and Upsala Street where children have to walk to school. Uh Vernon Hill School has a lot of uh kids who walk to school and those corners on both sides of Absol Street were not cleared. Uh we called in and by that next morning the school was uh you know obviously open. Uh those sidewalks were cleared. uh at business on Route 20, McDonald's on Route 20 in Rose Lane. Uh same thing, we we called it in and uh it was it was within a couple hours it was done. Uh I appreciate the Worcester Police Department uh and the chief as well. Uh we had a couple of cars on uh I'll name the street uh Fairfax Road that were uh

sitting there for months. had two tickets and there was plowed in and someone called in about it. We called uh in the incident and and uh Deputy Chief Deandrea was on it. Within an hour those two cars were towed off of Fairfax Road. So I want to I want to commend our chief chief Sauia and the Worester Police Department as well. And I want the general public to know that this is what's going on. they are doing their job and I commend them highly for it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Have councelor Bergman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh I've risen before on this topic in much more minor storms than the last storm, last couple storms we've had. I will say that I want to start off by saying that I fully realize that the vast majority overwhelming majority of the men and women who work for DPW or private contractors do a tremendous job during our snowstorms. I want to recognize that our our commissioner has been here only a year and he's somebody that's always been very responsive to me and uh and I know that he's well respected amongst his employees. I I will also say however that I do have concerns and if these concerns are interpreted are interpreted as criticism I can't help that and I'm not going to shy away from that. Um this to me snow removal and ice treatment is is not a u an effort like picking up leaves where if you have to come back there's no consequence. I myself, like I'm sure many people that are here today and those listening and those that live in the city, when they get up to go to work in the morning or or in the afternoon or the evening and they have to traverse down a slippery street which is either full of snow or ice, they take a deep breath themselves and family members wondering and worrying about whether or not their loved ones are going to make it where they need to go. I look at snow removal and ice treatment as a public safety issue no more than any other or no less than any other public safety issues. I've heard conversation a moment ago about managing expectations. I I I do think we need to manage expectations, but I differ from what I've heard. I think our expectations ought to be top. There are people in this city that that pay real estate taxes, residential, commercial, that are very high, among the highest in the state. I can't tell them that what they're getting for snow

removal service consistently is topof the line because it's not in my opinion. Um I know there's been some discussion about cars and I get it. There are cars in the way but I don't think that's a major factor in what's happening and I'm not faulting the commissioner. I personally think the issues here are bigger than any one person. I've been noting these issues not with Commissioner Westing only in charge, but with one or two commissioners at least before him. We increased the budget from $4.8 million to $6 million for snow removal not that long ago, a 30% increase. And I don't think we've gotten 30% improvement. I know we haven't. I'm going to hope that majority of these issues go to to DPW subcommittee because I think the time is going to be needed to discuss these in detail whether that's recruitment of of employees, retainment of employees and equipment. But let me just say every fall, whether it's September, October, I don't remember this year, I asked the commissioner, I know I asked Commissioner Weslang, how are you stacked up for this coming snow season? That's the time I want to hear what we need. I respect councelor econom and and the mayor your your suggestion that we need to ask those questions moving forward but to me those questions should have been answered in September and October not after the season is over because if we needed equipment and we needed other things the time is before the season starts my opinion not not after. I also asked Commissioner Westerling not that long ago in a much more minor storm when there was criticism from constituents what what lessons have we learned and unfortunately we did not gauge in in my opinion in a meaningful conversation. So I want to focus on one thing and one thing only in the time I have and that is not uh how many plow operators we have and not the amount of equipment we have uh in use but the work the quality of the work that the plow operators are doing. I have in my hand um three pages

and I know uh more pages will exist if the parameters were changed of seven or more complaints over the last two years. I mean complaints seven or more times over the last two years on over a 100 streets. And if the parameters were reduced to less than seven or more complaints, I'm sure we'd have more than a 100 streets. I'm sure we'd have hundreds of streets. Some of these complaints are 27 times in the last two years a particular street like Boardman Street has had complaints. That's not a long street and there are number of streets in every district that has had more than a dozen complaints over the last two years. And what are the complaints? The same complaint. Winter Street needs Sandra Saul. So through the chair I want to ask the commissioner. We have three ways of doing this right. We have the snowplow operator, the inspector and the supervisor. How can we have a dozen or two dozen complaints on a particular street over the last two years on the same street? Are they being addressed by by at least the inspector or the supervisor talking to the snowplow operator and saying why are we getting repetitive complaints on this street? That's my question to through the chair to this to the commissioner.

Commissioner,

uh through the chair um there are two different operations that occur during a winter storm. Uh it's both plowing and salting. We try to limit the amount of sand that goes out there, but plowing and and s salting. Uh during a storm, we have up to 370 plows. However, when it comes to the ability to be able to spread salt, we only have 65 spreaders, and that's a combination of some uh 40 uh private spreaders and some 25 city spreaders. So, our ability to be able to spread salt throughout the city is limited. Um, we have not had the city has not had uh a salting schedule for roads beyond what we call plan A. That would be a plan C. So, that's something that we identified. We are creating that ability to be able to salt beyond just plan A to extend to uh additional streets. And the other thing that's going to be helpful for us is the brine system. So when we only have 65 spreaders for salt, we can put out brine in advance so that we can get to those side streets.

Let me um I'm sorry. No, I I'm not familiar with that particular street or those concerns. Um I will say that not every storm we have 370 plows. There are storms when we have fewer. So those that particular street I I can't speak to specifically. Well, I I don't mean through the chair to make this about one street. There are 100 streets there at least. Um, and that's based on seven or more complaints over the last two years. So through the chair to the commissioner, if we don't have salt operations happening on any streets other than plan A, which I'm assuming are the main arteries, why do we need all these inspectors?

So through the chair, uh, I just want to clarify. So our salting operations cover main roads, bus routes, and what we call special. and specials are neither a main road nor a bus route but a side street that is either a steep hill or has an accident history. So those are our top priorities during initial phases of a storm. As the storm uh continues and we have uh adequate treatment on those mains, bus routes and specials, then we go out to what's called plan A. Uh and that's not every side residential street. that is uh additional roads that have been a a historical problem for us.

So through the chair, is there an actual list of the streets with hills and or history of accidents that you that is available to the council? Uh through the chair, we have a listing of the roads for the bus route, the mains, and the specials. Uh and those specials would be the ones that are more of a side street that have been historically a problem. And we can provide that information.

So there's Okay. So the other question I have is um through the chair to the commissioner is um is it your are you saying that the number of inspectors are needed? Well, let me let me back up because I want to run out of time. Is there a diary or a list of any conversations between supervisors and inspectors with with uh snowplow operators inquiring about whether or not they've done a satisfactory job? Has anybody asked is there a list as to whether or not any of these complaints have been justified? I'm not talking about not having enough salt because there are in there are entries in here that are not just about standard salt. They're about streets not plowed. So my question is, is there a diary or a list of inquiries made of snowplow operators by either inspectors or supervisors based upon complaints that the work hasn't been done correctly or properly?

Uh through the through the chair, uh there is not a list or a diary per se. Uh those communications happen during a storm. Uh I will say that not only do we have the city plows out there, but when we've got 300 or so private contractors, uh that's the focus of inspectors and supervisors because those don't all those folks don't always have radios. So that's why they're important out on the streets. What happens is that a 311 work order that's created will go through our dispatch center to the inspectors or the supervisors to be able to then guide the uh the plows. whether they're city or private. I'll give an example. Uh not every time do we have a full complement of plows on a route. There was not the past two storms, but a a storm further back where the route was supposed to have 24 plows on it. Due to shortages of manpower and equipment available, there were only eight plows available. So there are storms when we don't have a full complement of necessary equipment to be able to cover a route. And that's when those inspectors are uh most important because they are prioritizing concerns and complaints and 311 calls to be able to put those limited resources where they need to be.

So through the chair, I'm going to go back to the commission. I appreciate your answer, but there is no diary or or record of any communications between supervisors and inspectors and snowplow operators critiquing their work. Is that correct? Through the chair, that's correct. Okay. And I think this will be my last question, but I please don't hold me to it. I may have one follow-up question. I understand what the inspectors do based on what you've explained to me. What do the supervisors through the chair do differently than the inspectors do? And how many supervisors are there? Commissioner,

uh through the chair, you would have to ask me that. I believe that we have two outside coordinators. Uh and it's their job that the city is broken up in this case into two distinct uh portions. Um be below those outside supervisors there are uh su excuse me outside coordinators there are uh supervisors and the supervisors uh the city is broken up into four quadrants. So it's their responsibility to oversee the inspectors that are in those quadrants. So it's not just one person who's overseeing uh 300 plus pieces of equipment as I'm sure you can appreciate uh there's a breakdown. there is a hierarchy so that uh it's everything from the assistant commissioner of operations all the way down through everybody to make sure that we're able to reach out to all of those 300 plus pieces of equipment.

My last question uh this will be my last question. Would you agree through the chair? Would you agree or disagree with me, Commissioner, that if there was were snowplow operators that were not plowing properly, curb to curb, with no reason not to, and they were told to go back by an inspector and supervisor to do it right, the time they spend to correct it should not be on the taxpayers's dime. Would you agree with that? uh through the chair. I don't know that I can uh state that uh in in either yes or no because uh there could have been vehicles in the way. There could have been snow that was redeposited from a driveway. Um there there are multiple factors that could have been an insufficient number of plows. Uh there's there's many factors that would limit the DPW's ability to be able to clear a street curb to curb.

So actually my question I don't feel like I'm asking another. Just repeating something I said that I think the commissioner might have missed. If it was not anybody's fault other than snowplow operators for not doing a good job, none of the other factors you mentioned, should that be on the taxpayers's dime or should that be on the snowplow operator's dime to go back and do it the right way? I mean, I think it's a simple question, Commissioner. If you can't answer it, then we're done. I mean, I respect that, but

through the chair, uh, we don't release our our plow contractors until the job is done. Uh, we wouldn't be able to tell, uh, why a particular road wasn't cleared curb to curb, but in general, we strive with not only our city employees, but with our our privates to be able to clear those roads curb to curb. So, you can't tell why it wouldn't be done correctly. I just I I'm not going to ask him. just I think if there was a communication with the snowflower operator you might be able to tell but I respect the answer and I've taken my time so thank you. Thank you. Next we have council river about council me.

I'll be quick um some clarification and also just questions because u council kind of touched base on all the issues. Um one is through the chair to the um commissioner. You mentioned there's a 10-hour window afterwards for the sidewalks to be cleared and then you know sometimes the street needs to be wide. Can can it be possible where we can work on instead of 10 hours it'd be like after the streets is you know widen then they can go clear the sidewalk so that way they're not doing it twice. Um

through through the chair that's something I've got to look at. I don't know what the legality is, but that's something that we can look at of being flexible with when those sidewalks have to be cleared. There are certain times where, for example, if school is being held that day, it's essential for public safety, right? Um but that's something that we can look at of can we be flexible with that 10-hour time frame. And the other two is clarification. So the residents know one of them um called in today is uh can you let the residents know what the um city's uh policy um ordinance is on fire hydrants? You know, who's responsible for that? So

through the chair, it's the uh AB butter's responsibility to clear those hydrants. Uh there's also a program where residents can adopt a hydrant. If they call 311, they can adopt a hydrant and that's their responsibility through the winter. Uh it's also just good practice if there's a hydrant in front of your home that you that's the abuter's responsibility to clear to be able to get out there because god forbid there is a fire and the hydrant is is snowed in. Uh I would uh I would hope that folks get out there uh and take that responsibility seriously because it could impact their own private property.

Yeah, I agree. and then uh through the chair through the um commissioner. It's it's been a lot of work. U it's been a year and uh it's been quite a year for yourself. I remember first storm was I think was your first day if I recall. Um could you let the residents know how much mileage of um Wister needs to be plowed? I know even if you have the six hours, even if you have fully staffed like you know

uh through the chair for public roadways we have 460 miles of of public roadway and about 80 miles of private roadway. Uh just for reference uh the distance between here and Virginia Beach is about 460 miles. So it's it's a large undertaking and not every one of those roads is just two lanes wide. Some of them, Goldstar Boulevard, Park Avenue, Belmont Street are multiple lanes wide. And that's why, as councelor Econom mentioned earlier, uh the city doesn't have any wing plows, which was curious to me when I first started, um one wing plow, one one six wheeler with a wing plow can do the work of two or three private contractors. So, that's something that we are looking at, uh bringing online.

Thank you. And uh congratulations again. Thank you. Thank you very much, Council Me.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to the commissioner. Commissioner, first of all, congratulations for almost finishing a year and uh doing a great job for our city. Certainly, as you heard from many of us that uh everybody thinks that you and your crew, they do a tremendous job. uh and uh work very hard to see that the city is in better shape and in a safer position. Uh I'm not here to really uh complain but I I think I what I would like to mention here uh is that uh if you remember that first time when I met with you I asked you that commissioner are you satisfied or happy with uh the performance and you gave me one answer saying that within the resources I have I am. I also mentioned to you and you probably make made a note of it that you are not the only one in this include me in your team if you remember that I want to urge to all the counselors here that commissioner is not only the responsible person we're all responsible for what is happening in this city we get calls from our residents and it becomes our duty to let you know what we hear from them I I have been attending many neighborhood meetings. I have been getting many calls. Um most of them are giving me sort of like grievances. I go to neighborhood meetings and one of the things they always say that it was not done up to the par. Uh the cleaning wasn't done so well. Somebody called me said that uh information was known way ahead that this storm is coming. How come we are not prepared? I think all of those are

valid. You know, people call me saying that on Monday our trash gets picked up, but because of the storm coming, it didn't get picked up. It was, you know, delayed for Tuesday. And my uh recycling bin was sitting there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I kept calling 311. Nobody came. They said they were coming, but nobody came. I personally went there to see that person who called me. So I'm saying that the when residents talk to us, tell us about what they're going through, there has to be some truth and it's our responsibility to bring it back to you. But I'm want to emphasize that we should not think that it's us to give it to you and figure it out, solve this. I think we are together in it. We all have to think that what can we do? Are there something that we can do that we're missing? You need to give us that you mentioned that I'm happy within the resources I have. That means probably you are not having enough resources to be more happy to do the job that needs to be done so that our residents can call us and saying we're so happy the way it is done. This is a city is one of the it's the second largest city in entire New England. We have 200,000 plus population. So many cars are driving, people are going to work. I mean suddenly we have issues when there's a storm like this 20 plus inches comes in. You know we we really have to worry about it. But are we thinking out of the box? I want every counselor to think what can we do? I mean there are cities where we have snow more than this 30 in 40 in how are they managing? There are countries where it's snowing more than this. How are they managing? I have heard that some cities they send in at

night 18 willers to come and pick up all the snow banks and throw the snow somewhere in the field. Are we thinking of that? Can we do that? I'm I just want to say that we all think together. We all come together and see not just giving it to our commissioner that think of it. It's a complaint coming. I mean do we have a standardized system? How much wide the snow the road should be clean if the road is this big? If the road is narrow, how much should we clean? If there is a walkway, how much should we do? I see sometimes the snow bank is, you know, piled up so much that I can't see make a left turn. I can't see the cars coming. Is there a standardized thing? Councelor Bergman asked you that do you have a communication log? We don't. You said no, we don't. Should we have it? I am thinking that we should probably have some kind of standardized system that this is what will be we will say that we have done our job to the way we thought we should do when somebody calls me and says it's not done up up to the point it should be done I mean what is that up to the point then we can say look our standard shows I will clean the road to the extent that it will be 18 ft wide we have done that if there is a snow piled up over 2 ft or 3 ft We'll have a 18 hooler come and throw this. I'm just thinking that what can we do? We all together in it. It's not you only and I want to be a part of it to think and kind of come up with the solution. All of us together. So there are things that needs to be done. Apparently when people are saying they're not happy, there are things that needs to be done. My roads are small, my roads are narrowing, it's not clean. We just heard about the incident that we all know about the you know sad death of this you know elderly lady that the even the emergency truck

could not our vehicles could not even go there. So I I I do think we have issues and it's not only our city I mean this kind of issues are there I think many cities but I think let us all think what can we do to resolve it. It's not only you but I would like to join with you to burst my brain to read up and see what is happening in those cities in those countries where it snows more than this they are solving it they must be having do we have resources to bring those I'm mayor said Mr. may said that the potholes is an issue. I'm a strong proponent of getting rid of all potholes. I want to see that everybody in this city says we'll live in a city with no potholes. You know, I I want to do all those things. But if I just tell you, can you clean all the potholes, fix all the potholes, I want to see that how giving you a problem is not my goal. giving you a solution along with the problem. I think that's where I stand as a city councelor. So I'm thinking what else we can do. You give us a list of things that you think are missing and let us all see that can we bring those ammunition tools things manpower what you need that is missing here to meet the you know requests from the u residents of our city. So that's where I am. I want to see that each one of us work together. Each one of us think together and think that this is our city and we need to resolve this issue. So our residents call us one day saying what a great job you have done. Thank you Mr. Mayor.

If I could uh through the chair

uh just a comment first I appreciate this opportunity to to share the challenges that the DPW has but also to hear the frustrations and the needs of areas of improvement for the DPW. Uh, as I said, this was an historic storm. The last storm that we had that was uh on the list was back in 2015. So, uh I think that the the DPW has uh not necessarily prepared for a 22-in storm as well as we could. part of my report uh for the the January 23rd through 26 storm was looking at the evaluation of the of the winter snow program, excuse me, program that we had and that started when I first started last February. Uh so there were there were shortcomings that we had to fix. We've made great strides towards that, but there's more to come. Um, and just to your point of uh 18 wheelers coming in, we have been out for several nights through the night clearing uh Green Street around Polar Park, Hamilton Street, uh, Grafton Street, and when we're out at night, uh, we're also using our snowblower, we're using loaders, we're using city trucks, we're using private contractors to be able to remove that snow. Uh and then finally, to your point, uh how do other cities, bigger cities do it or cities that get more snow? Uh we're evaluating those city operations. We're looking at their ordinances and policies so that we can uh hopefully mirror some of those to improve our operations.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate. Okay,

I got a list here. I have a list. And you're next, Council Ti. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Um, thank you, Commissioner. Um, first I want to put a huge thank you to um the men and women uh of the department who are actually doing the work as well as our police department and fire departments that are out there doing the work um is a lot. Uh as you said, it was historic snow. Um and uh I think that's notable. Um, I think especially the other the other aspect of this is you've got the same crew dealing with all of these water main breaks and all of that. Many of the same crew are helping each other out. And so for that uh the the men and women in your department and the police and fire departments for all of their their efforts in doing that extraordinary amount of work during very difficult uh times and also I mean below freezing temperatures just very difficult and also our subcontractors who uh are are with us. I know Rachi Brothers was out uh in force and and all of their folks. So we are very grateful for all of them. Uh almost uh almost a year ago um I had filed an order uh to uh request that the city manager um request public works and parks review the feasibility of the city using snow plow attachments used in Alaska called snow boots which clear driveways as they plow. Now it's my understanding I I know that there there have been some issues. Well, sometimes they break down etc. But there's certain snows, types of snow that they work really well in. Um, and so I know that technology has changed. I also know that there's also another um thing sometimes called uh a snow boot.

Uh, it's called also an under underbody scraper plow. Um, and so I think that these, you know, I' I'd like to know what the possibility of of adding these to our fleet would be, especially um, uh, when we're talking about making sure that we're, uh, getting as much uh, width as we possibly can of the street. Um, so could you speak to that? I know Spokane, Washington, um, uh, Soul, St. Maria, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, they all use the u the snow boots as well.

Uh through the chair, uh two things. Thank you very much for pointing out uh the fact that our our resources, our DPW resources are shared amongst all of our divisions. As was mentioned earlier, every day we have to collect uh sanitation at the curb. Uh but this past weekend we had a 16inch water mane break that had uh our employees working out in the worst of conditions for 20 hours straight. Uh so they were not available. When we look at how many plows do we have available, how many city plows do we have available, that's always impacted by either sanitation or water mane breaks. We've got a sewer main break uh that we're also working on. So it does reduce uh the number of vehicles and plows that are available. So, thank you for for mentioning that. Um, we are looking at uh the the nomenclature that we use are wing plows and those are plows that are mounted on the side of a truck. Um, the city has no wing plows,

right? So, we are looking at we've got six large dump trucks that are going to be delivered sometime in June and we are we have a quotation to be able to add wing plows to those. Those do two things. Uh they can clear driveways as they're going by. Uh they can clear snow. Uh one truck can take the place of two or three trucks together. So that expands our ability to clear snow. Uh but also they can uh it's called shelving where when you've got those large uh wind rows on the side of the road, if you have a wing plow that comes by, it can knock those down. So we are looking at those and we hope to bring those on board.

Good. Um, glad to hear that. Um, I also want to mention that um, the snow dragon that you have, the ice melter was actually uh, purchased after I filed an order uh, on that as well. And I'm wondering if we uh, possibly uh, I know that's we've had that for a little while. Uh, wondering if uh, we could do a costbenefit analysis on maybe selling that to a smaller town and and purchasing one of the newer models that actually are far more efficient. and you know because I I can't imagine that the expense of trucking the snow uh is very you know cheap either. So, I mean that's so if we could do a a costbenefit analysis on that um taking a look at selling what we have um and then using some of those funds uh as well to put toward it um a much more uh efficient and beneficial uh upgraded model uh if we could consider that through an order. Um, and then lastly, um, in the past we've put in our tax bills, um, the snow ordinances, etc. Um, and I would like to, uh, through a motion, uh, ask that we include that as well in our tax bills, especially going into the winter. Uh, so that people are minded reminded of what the uh, current ordinances are. Uh, and inclusive of the hydrants and catch basins. And I thank my counselor uh colleague uh uh councelor Riviera for mentioning that uh as something that as chair of public safety from the fire department perspective uh it's always on my mind and I on my own Facebook put out reminders to everybody to please you know just because someone even though that person is responsible that butts the hydrant my neighbor is an elderly individual who can't do it and so I think it's important that we tell everybody

we're all responsible for it. And not only the hydrants, but also um it's the catch basins, right? Making sure that they're clear so that when the snow starts to melt that it's able to go uh in and properly instead of flooding the street and freezing again. So, I think that's incredibly important and I know that collaboratively with the fire department, maybe we can do some PSAs through Mr. here to the manager. Um, you know, videos on how important it is. Three feet on every side of your fire hydrant and how to how to shovel out your catch basin. You do it while you're shoveling. You're not dealing with the icy residue that's left over uh from clear clearing it up. So, through the chair with those orders, that would be

those in favor. I just want to say thank you again to you. I know the chief is here as well. Thank you to the chief and uh the fire department and and um all of your staff. Appreciate it

through the chair. I I appreciate the kind words from you and and everyone around uh from all the counselors. So, thank you very much. Uh you did mention something about ordinances, sending those out in the the the tax bill. And that's one of the things on my list is to improve our website and public education uh to let folks know about our new brining system, when it's appropriate to be used. Um, there are ways for folks when they're shoveling driveways, instead of taking the snow and putting it out on the the street or on the what I'll call the upstream side, when a plow's coming along, if you put the snow on the downstream side, when the plow comes along, it's not going to put it back in your driveway. Uh, so those are those are the things that we're looking to improve our our public education side.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Bada.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um yeah, like everyone else, definitely want to thank you for all the hard work. Certainly, I know um all the contractors and plers and TPW um and inspectors were and yourself were were doing uh as as much as you could and everyone was incredibly responsive to all um of my concerns, you know, and and uh concerns that residents would come to me with. But, um, you know, I would not be doing my job as a as a district counselor if if I didn't, you know, express, you know, the frustrations of of constituents and and definitely want to acknowledge that it was a very difficult storm and and we received a lot of snow and and obviously in neighborhoods where um there's limited off- streetet parking, vehicles, you know, caused challenges. Um, you know, one thing that I I think that the city, the DPW, um, I think could you could you you know, certainly I' would like to see this do better with is is the, you know, in the few days after the storm. I I think there was opportunities, you know, for um, clearing snow. You mentioned Hamilton Street. I know we've been working very close on that. Um, and, you know, I think there's there were plenty of opportunities during the day when folks are out of their spots, you know, on Hamilton Street. This I think goes for every neighborhood where you know the city could come through and clear those spots where where cars you know were parked. Um but I you know I really think there are always opportunities to do better. Um and again just wanted to say you know thank you for all the work and and you know we received multiple complaints from folks up on um Boardman Street. I know councelor Bergman brought that up and um Scrimjor and and that Indian Hill Lake neighborhood and you know your team was responsive and we got it you know fixed. I just you know it does concern me though when it seems like chunks of a whole neighborhood were kind of it it you know at least from what residents were re reiterating to me that it you know there could have been a better job done there. But I know again the storm is challenging. I think some

of these issues are never going to be fixed. This it's New England. We're in a city. Um, you know, it's challenging to to remove snow, but I I always think that there's opportunities to to grow and and and like counselor uh um Mitra said, you know, how can we help with that? And and so I think there's it's great to hear what you said about some of the plows that are going to be coming online for next winter. I just have a couple questions. Um, so you mentioned in the in the report when fully staffed there's, you know, a certain amount of of inspectors and um, supervisors, how many like root inspectors and super did we have in the days after the storm or that were out there? So through the chair uh the inspector team with the outside coordinators and supervisors that's during an active storm. Okay.

Uh the only time that we would bring in additional inspectors is if we had uh clean up the days after and we have had those instances where we need to go back out. we need to rescrape roads and that's when we would send out the inspectors to be sure that the resources that we have that we're addressing those 311 work orders that are created. Um I will share that uh the I'm losing track of the storms now but um we had a number of inspectors uh that we put into plow trucks uh because we were short-handed with uh city plows and private plows. So, we're not always just putting out inspectors when we have limited resources. Sometimes we're putting those folks uh after all of the union folks have been offered the work. We're putting those inspectors into plow trucks when available.

Okay. Thank you.

No, I definitely agree that, you know, it is, you know, public needs to take care of their sidewalks and business owners need to take care of their their sidewalks as well. Um, but it, you know, again, I always think we can do better. And as a followup, um, what is the the the complement of of DPW trucks that have been out there since the storm like in the last about the last week or so? Like is there an average number of trucks that are out there to continuing to do cleanup and snow removal? What is what has it looked like the last week or so? So the uh through the chair, the the department of streets and sanitation has approximately 100 employees when fully staffed. Um some of those folks are doing uh other things other than snow. They are uh they're collecting curbside uh trash. They're doing other things. But anyone that we have available, whether it's the normal hours or if it's after hours or through the evening doing uh snow removal, we're putting all the trucks out there that we can. And as I mentioned earlier, uh that that first week and 10 days of the storm, we had 20 employees who were working between 70 and 100 hours of overtime. So, uh I don't have a specific number. We could probably develop that if that's uh if that's asked for, but I will say that whatever we've got, whoever we've got available in trucks that are not being repaired, they're out on the streets. They're they're pushing back, they are salting, they are brining, they are removing snow. uh even during the day. Now, uh we've got a loadermounted snowblower, the mouth of which is about the size of this table and that's deployed in areas where we don't have a concern for cars that are parked on the side of the road during regular hours and it's casting the snow into into the woods. So, we've got a lot of activities that are ongoing for this this 22-in

storm. Okay. No, I appreciate it. And again, yeah, definitely want to say thank you to everyone. And I know the amount of cars that were towed definitely speaks to the the challenges that we have in the neighborhoods where it's denser, where folks don't have places to park, but also folks that aren't, you know, paying attention and working with us on the parking ban. Um, but yeah, I can appreciate everyone's work and hope we can, you know, work to tweak things for the future moving forward and and make improvements. I think there's always room for improvement. So, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Ba. We have council Rosen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through the chair to the commissioner, there's a couple of areas that I guess I'm most concerned about because I get a lot of calls on these and it's the hills. It's the hills that seem to get snow covered and the snow gets packed down and it gets icy. And I just hear about the hills constantly. one, if we have snow tonight, uh I'll hear about about it from uh the residents tomorrow. And that's Ryell Street, runs from the top of Brandwood Road, where I grew up, and it goes down to Chandler Street. It's a huge hill. And I've probably talked to two of the residents on that street. There's not that many houses on it, but to every storm. I mean, five or six times we've had, you know, some two or three inch storms, too. So, the Hills and you talked about I think you said 65 spreaders used for salts. Uh, that's great. They they call 311. It takes forever. I'm not blaming you. I don't know whose fault it is. I don't know much about 311. They call, we'll get a spreader up there. We'll get salt up there. And it just seems never to arrive. And they start calling me a day or two later. I know one gentleman was out shoveling his walk. He fell. He got hurt. He had his phone. He called the ambulance. This is still Ryell Street. Called the ambulance. The ambulance came down the hill, which it means going up Brantwood Road and going down to Chandler Street. So down Ryell Street, but they went right by the man lying there and they slammed into the guardrail at the bottom. This is the ambulance. I mean, so he calls all the time and he's right. He's right. And I'll call 311 and I don't know if you know they get right up there, but that's the big problem. I think the hills and in fact we

the tragedy we had Mr. chairman Alla and I forgive me if I pronounce her last uh name wrong, a Russian woman, Alla uh Cypov, 17 Asabet Lane on that hill. And it's it's really a shame that in our in our community, someone 88 years old, a woman I guess was probably outside shoveling her walk or the driveway was out shoveling because, as you know, everyone here knows that she was found after, you know, frozen to death here in the city of Worcester because she's 88 and she was shoveling. And somehow we have to find ways to get agencies out there, teenagers out there. I know the kids had a couple of days off from school. We got a lot of strong teenagers, high school kids, and probably if they knew about it and maybe we could give them some type of compensation, but there's no way that this woman should have died out in the snow frozen to death. I just think I think of that and I say, "Oh my goodness, just how often there's seven Asibet Lane and then we saw the uh response of the ambulance and the fire department and they had trouble making it up and down that particular hill. So I bring that into my talk about the hills here. We really have to do better on the hills and it's not just Ryell Street. It's not just Asabet Lane. It's Rentham Road and so many others. I know you've heard that, but it seems to me that with those spreaders and our limited capacity to spread this salt, then we do only hills. I I live on a flat level road that always is icy. But I don't complain because I'm saying at least it's flat. I don't have to worry about going up or down a hill. But if I lived on a hill, boy, I would expect the salt. I know you talked about sand. You don't like to spread sand. So the salter to get there

as soon as possible. maybe that same day, maybe the next day, but I think I've heard from people it's been a couple of days. And the shoveling now, sidewalk shoveling around the schools to me is just so important. When there's no school, that's fine. But eventually school starts up. And if the neighbors around that school and around the surrounding streets haven't shoveled the residential sidewalks, and a lot of them they can't because a day or two later when the kids go back to school, the mounds and the sidewalks, we've already heard it from everyone, are just so tall. There's so much snow. How do you get out there? You can have a snowb blow if you're looking up there at the mountain, you can't get through it. So, we have to I think we have to do more of somehow we contract. We have plows plowing the street. We need contractors to shovel these sidewalks that residents, homeowners refuse, maybe business owners too, refuse to shovel. They don't see the importance. I talked about it last meeting about guarded school. They don't see the importance of shoveling the walks so the kids don't have to walk out in the street. And many of these children, you know, they're not high school, even middle school. They're elementary school. So through the chair to the commissioner, do we do much with shoveling people's sidewalks? I know we've done that in the summer even with mowing lawns and so on. Do we do much with shoveling private sidewalks and then fining them for not doing the job? Number one, because I know we do that now, but that doesn't get the walk shovel. And do we send out some type of a crew that shovels them and we we bill the owner of that property or put a lean on the house, whatever we have to do.

Commissioner, through the chair, uh, a couple of points if I could. Um, I think that it'd be important for the DPW to provide a list of those streets that are the mains, the bus routes, and the specials. And those specials are some of those hill areas that you're talking about, just so there's an understanding of what the priorities are currently. So, it's not all the hills, though. It's certain hills through the chair. Uh, the city of seven hills has much more than seven hills. I understand that. So, you're telling me we do as many hills as we can.

Correct. So, I will provide that list. I think that'll be important. So if people look to see that their their street is not on that list, uh then we can rep prioritize. I will say that during that heavy storm you had mentioned previously Ryell and Fourth Street both off of the Mil Street area.

Uh I went up to be just one instance, but Fourth was plowed uh in Ryell. I happened to see one of the one of the Butters who had his own plow truck who was helping out by clearing up the street. I offered him to come and plow with the city because he's got two plows. I don't know where that stands, but I made that offer to him. Um, so to your specific question of uh the sidewalks, there is a provision where if uh sidewalks are not cleared that the DPW can bring in a contractor to shovel the streets or excuse me, shovel those sidewalks in those areas and charge back to the property owner. We haven't done that this year and I don't know what the history has been, but this year we have not had to implement that clause.

Well, we haven't implemented it. You say we we haven't had to I think someone's got to shovel these sidewalks, especially around the schools where the children are. So, it seems to be a policy that we have to have people, I don't know who, boy scouts, companies, whoever to shovel these walks. We find the owner of the property and we collect hopefully from the owner of the property for getting the shoveling done. We just can't say we're going to find them. Mr. Chairman, the mayor just wants to say something quickly. Well, that's good. Okay.

Uh through the chair to the council, I just want to um uh make a point here. The commissioner mentioned that DBW has not uh done that, but the quality of life team has. And so there's a for example there's an incident that happened on the east side of the city working with councelor Bilada uh of a private entity that that had that situation uh kind of length of a sidewalk was not taken care of and quality of life to address that pretty quickly. So the quality of life team is actively doing that in some areas where we are sending contractors to clean the area and we're finding uh the the property owners for that. Uh so there are elements of the so again the the work that happens around snow clearing in the city and enforcement etc is not just DPW there's a massive whether it's police whether it's PCOS PCOS are part of the transportation and mobility but then also quality of life so there's a bunch of teams of efforts that are working to try to kind of address some of these issues

okay so Mr. the man saying we do shovel have shoveled some of those walks and we do fine and build the owners. I'm just suggesting we probably have to do more of that.

Okay. And uh through the ch to the commissioner is there ever a storm not the not the 22 inch one but the four or five or six inches that came after that the next storm that it's not an emergency. The 22 incher was an emergency. So then we could get all many of the trained DPW workers to work overtime. They had to during the emergency. But the next storm wasn't declared an emergency by the state or by the city manager. So now we have to turn to them and say, "Will you please work for overtime and plow for us? We have some equipment." They might turn us down. Am I correct? and we may not have enough people from the city to do the plowing with our equipment because they just for some reason maybe don't want that overtime. Is that correct?

Through the mayor the contract with a local 495 union does state that under a declared emergency by either the governor or the city manager uh overtime is mandatory. Other times overtime is voluntary. So that's something that we h we work with our crews uh to to be able to bring in as many people as we can through the chair to the commissioner. So we might have equipment for a four, five, six, seven inch storm that's not being used because our people our union folks for DPW don't want to work for overtime that day through the chair. That's an accurate statement

and that's that's kind of a shame. I think we have to take a look at our contracts, too, because we've talked about maybe not having enough equipment, not having enough employees, not having enough money, whatever it might be. But if you're telling me that during a storm equipment is sitting unused because certain employees don't want to work overtime, I know you can't force them, but that's an issue. That certainly is an issue. If we have equipment not being used, I I certainly uh you know can't accept that. Through the chair, if I may sure interrupt you just on that specifically. Uh we have identified the need to uh re-evaluate the overtime provisions.

Uh we are entering a period of negotiation with local 495 and that's something that we're going to be looking at. That's good. That's good to hear. Council, you got two minutes.

Okay, two minutes. I'm going to talk faster. Uh Mr. manager, the city garages. I look at June Street, June Street from Newton Square down to Channel Street. That's about a mile. And I see these car, this is after the 22 incher. And I see the cars parked there and the plows going back and forth and just piling the snow into these cars. And I see the people, a lot of young people, I think they go to Wor State University. And they're out there hours later spending hours and hours shoveling out. And it's a little hole they shovel out and they try to back in when they get home and it's difficult. But I'm saying to myself, we've got garages. Why? I mean, I have a driveway, but if I didn't have a driveway, I don't I'd bring my car down to one of these garages. I'd get a friend to bring me home, a relative. I'd call a counselor to give me a ride home. I'd do it some way. Free busing, Uber. But why would you park on June Street when there's 22 inches of snow coming and then get out there hours later and the backbreaking work? I just don't understand. Are these garages filling up? I I hope they're filling up. Are they

Mr. Manager? Mr. Manager. To say to the council, we have a number of residents that use them, but I think, you know, definitely more residents should take more advantage of this kind of

Do they know about it? Um we try to put out as much message as possible in our social medias, traditional media outlets, etc. Um we can continue to expand our communication efforts on that. Uh but again, these are things that we've tried to expand. So it's not just the night of the snowstorm. The last snowstorm, I think we left it open for almost a week to allow people to be able to do that. Uh so anything that we can do to provide more access to for residents to be able to do that. But there are current residents that actively use it especially in the downtown area. You see a lot of residents using that. Um but we would you know we would invite more residents.

I think if everyone in that one mile stretch of June Street brought their car down there they could do curb to curb on June Street. Then you bring your car home you don't have to shovel. You've got the space there already. Why people wouldn't do it? I don't know. I have to assume they just don't know about it. But thank you Mr. Manager. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Next was council O'Hare.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, yes, I'll start off the same way. You know, there was a lot of work that needed to be done. Um, you know, I received a lot of calls and um, so I I probably have a lot of questions here and I don't mean to keep everybody, but um, so first off, um, still don't know where we stand when it comes to the bus stops through the chair, to the commissioner. Um I know that's something that um councelor King had put on and we had asked to add to about the bus stops, but there's, you know, there's still some of them that just don't aren't shoveled out. Where are we as a city when it comes to that when when someone's plowing? Um what are we doing with that? Commissioner

through the chair. Uh according to the WRTA's website, uh the uh the WRTA is responsible for clearing snow from the bus stops. Okay. Thank you. So, and if till this day they're not cleared out, what's the next step through the chair? Commissioner,

uh through the chair, it is uh notification to the WRTA, maybe through the 311 process or direct calls. Um I I don't know where the bus stops are and those that are have been cleared or haven't been cleared, but if they're brought to my attention, certainly happy to bring that forward to WRTA or 311 can do the same. But uh it is the WRTA's responsibility. The website states that they routinely clean snow from uh from the bus stops.

Okay. Thank you. So, um leads me to another question. Um when it comes to the crosswalks, um you know, um Council Rosen brought up the crosswalks. My concern is the crosswalks around the schools. What is the what is the plan for for plowing around the schools and the crosswalks around the schools? Um Till this day, there's still narrow crosswalks for kids to cross through. It's still too high for kids to to cross the streets. And um I'm really concerned with that. Any snow we have we get, it's just going to continue to pile up there. And as we've seen, we continue to see, no one's addressing these. Um and it's a it's a it's an issue that I see in district 4 um a whole lot. It is a densed area. Um but I think we're at this point where for me, they don't seem to be addressed. So where do we stand with crosswalks especially around the schools and in plowing around the schools?

Uh through the chair. Um during the initial days after the snowstorm, our assistant commissioner of operations was in touch with the phys I believe was the facilities manager from the school uh who provided a list of areas where he needed or she needed help with snow removal which we addressed. Um I think that as we go through and remove snow uh for example on Grafton Street um in front of the schools uh there we had great success with removing snow uh at the curb and that helps to break down those uh those crosswalks and those high uh wind rows. However, the responsibility still rests with the abutters. I understand that the the challenge is greater because of the depth of snow. Uh but that responsibility still goes back to those uh butters.

Okay. Thank you. And is is through the chair, is there any communication I know you mentioned communication with the schools, but is there communication during the snowstorms to work alongside um facilities or the custodians? I believe the other ones that mainly do the snow plowing or blow uh the using the snow plows um sorry snowblowers. is a communication with that. I've seen time and time again where there's times where uh the plow drop drivers pushing it back, custodians throwing it back, and it's just a consistent back and forth. Um, and obviously the residents are the one that suffer the most. So, is there um conversations with them to say, "Okay, this time of day or whatever it is, that communication to to to do a better job within that area in those areas." uh through the chair. As I stated, the assistant commissioner of operations does have that number and there have been communications between the two. Um and where we can when we're doing uh snow removal operations, we help out in those areas.

Okay. Thank you. And then um you know, we mentioned parking vans earlier and um you know, I received several phone calls and some pictures of the streets that have parking vans. cars were parked on one side, but it just seemed like the plow truck drivers just went right down the middle and blocked all the cars over to the right. And on the left side, the snow should have been over to the left and a lot of residents got got really plowed in. So, my question is through the chair to the commissioner due to not having enough um plow truck drivers, you know, um how do we share information to these plow truck drivers on certain roads that should be plowed to the left? It may be a new a new plow truck driver, right, that's coming on. You saw you met one the other day and you had asked him to come on. How do we make sure that they do a um that they knew where they're supposed to push the snow to the side? Again, residents are getting stuck in. I had to grab a couple of my some of my students to help out. Uh myself as well to get people out. And you'll see the road and it's quite obvious that it all should been pushed to the left, but it was just right down the middle and any car on the right got stuck. through the chair. Uh, a lot of our vehicles have articulating plows where they could choose to either move the snow to the left side or the right side of the road. However, a lot of the a lot of the plows, especially the bigger trucks, they have fixed mounted plows that are cannot be articulated left or right. They are fixed plowing to the right hand side. So, depends on the road. If we have that ability, we would uh potentially articulate or move the the plow so that it moves the snow to the left hand side. But in general, there are all plows that move the snow and the wind rows to the right hand side.

Okay. So, this particular street, the cars are on the right side. And so, um and I believe it's a one-way street. So, if they're going down and it's plowing to the right and the cars are parked on the right, they're going to get plowed in. Is that correct?

Correct. That through the chair. We've seen that across the city. There are still cars that have yet to be moved since that storm. Um, and they are they're snowed in. To the point that was made a minute ago by councelor Rosen. Uh, if there if there is a parking ban, there are other options for some to be able to use those city parking garages which are free of charge during parking bands. So, how do we address those roads though that um parking is allowed on one side, but the truck goes down and and plows them in?

Uh through the chair. If you've got a specific road, we can look at what street that is. Uh we can find out what we use for vehicles and plows in that area and determine if we can uh instead put the snow to the left hand side.

Okay. Thank you. Um we had mentioned uh adopt a hydrant. Um, there was a resident that that needed help. She was 89 years old. She lived in the neighborhood forever. Quick story. It was pretty cool. She told me she remember when 290 wasn't even there. And that was real interesting to me to know that there was no highway there. And she remembered that. So, um, she's been there that long. And, um, we have to be able to way to identify where these fire hydrants are. Right now, there are a ton of ton of fire hydrants. I'm driving down streets. I'm making a list of them that are covered that um I'm wondering if they're if they're if they're there on the road or not um on on some major roads as well on on the main roads. So, what are we doing right now about rem about trying to make sure we we remove the snow because it's obvious it's not being done right now

through the chair commissioner. uh through the chair, our operations are focused like right now to your specific question, our our operations are focused on clearing the storm that we're currently receiving. Uh beyond that, we are focused on widening those streets. We're focused on snow removal. So, we as the DPW, we don't have the forces to be able to go out and clear snow from hydrants at this time. Okay. Uh I guess due to chair to the to the commissioner, I mean, sorry to Mr. Andrew

through through the ch of to the council I think one of the things that we need to do right now as council as administration is continue to remind residents that is their responsibility to do this right uh we can't continue just say DBW your job is to do xy andz so us collectively as councils as people email you text you communicate back to them their responsibility one of the things that we're going to do too is we're exploring to you the utilization of our current inspectors as part of the inspectional services department to help support in inspecting some of these areas as they're travesting the the streets or going about their dayto-day uh and inspecting properties to pay attention to these fire hydrants or even vehicles so that they could be able to communicate that to the police department so or DPW so that we can be able to rectify that. So that's something that we're currently actively exploring uh as part of the inspectional services team in their day-to-day inspections of properties that they can pay attention so we can be able to address some of those areas.

Okay. Thank you. I think um one of the major concerns is a lot of the property owners are aren't living at that location or business owners aren't uh the people that own the property where businesses are. They're um they're not here in WA or they're hard to to get in in contact with. I reached out to one and still haven't heard back about you know one of the properties in in the district and it's really concerning um because you see young young young kids trying to climb over. You see some of the elderly literally climbing over u mountains of snow and it's uh it's really tough to see that. Um, you know, we don't The last thing I want to see is is someone get hurt on something that we we probably could have um got ahead of um another question I have to the chair to the commissioner is um a lot of 311 calls. you know, I I I was actually in contact with you several times. Um, and I wanted to make sure we do it the right way. But

is there conversations in identifying some of the major calls that you received over and over again or 301 received over and over again to address there was a gentleman here about a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, saying for over 20 years or something like that, that his road was consistently an issue and it was never addressed. Um, how are we addressing those roads that consistently have issues? Um, Kingsbury Street was an issue for me. Uh, Kingsbury and Woodland was a was a major issue for me. Even up to last week, the snow was still there. Over a week, uh, residents were were getting stuck. People had to push people through. I just, it's really tough to see over a week later that there's still a lot of snow in certain areas and residents still complaining. Um, and they're the ones that are shoveling people out. They're the ones, you know, shoveling their sidewalks, but their roads are just struggling. Are those going to be on a priority list? I know the main roads aren't a priority list, but the ones that are, you know, like the resident, you know, unfortunately the one that passed away, there was there was a issue. The one with uh Rosen had explained the gentleman that fell. That seems like to be a cons consistent issue on these roads. We've been at this a long time. We got over just about two feet of snow, but we know there's certain roads that really need to be addressed and they just continue to come up. Where are we at with that? Commissioner,

what's your focus

through the chair? Our focus is on uh making sure that all of the 540 miles of road that we have in the city that we are doing our best to remove the snow. Um people had asked, well, why several days after the storm is there still snow pack on our streets? And it's a combination of things. um people that are shoveling out their cars, putting the snow in the street, that requires us to go back, redeploy our plows in those neighborhoods and on those streets. Um it is a matter of multiple factors, but it it's our job to look at those 311 complaints that are coming through, making sure that the teams that we have available are going out and addressing those on a daily basis. council.

Um I think that's all I got. Thank you. And um you know, again, thank thank you for everyone for all the work they've been doing. Um obviously, you know, we can get some better equipment. I saw the truck today. He was on Gate Street, the truck you were talking about, uh throwing all the snow from the sidewalk into the park on um at Crystal Park. So, that's great to have. Uh we have it. So, if anyone hasn't seen it, I can I can attest to it. Um, but yeah, I think we just need to focus more on, you know, hopefully find a way we can get the residents and business owners to to help out as well, but to show them that we're there for them, right? I don't want them feeling as though it's your fault, you need to do it. We're uh we need to u understand that we need to work together to to make sure we get this done right. So, thank you. Thank you.

See another council car for a second time. I hear you.

Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, real quick, just a couple quick questions. um something to bring forward to people so they understand too. We talk about vehicles in the parking van in the last 10 years uh our vehicle inventory just in the city of Worcester has has grown to over 14,600 vehicles. So there are more cars, more trucks, more pickups here in the city than there were before. So obviously that's going to add some issues to to our u plowing operations and again enforcing the winter parking ban and having people be proactive in following the parking back ban. Um in my in my opinion, one of the things that failed us during this storm was our communication system. Um it's been it's been out. I know we've been following up on it. I know um it's been in the test and contract phase. I think that would be important going into a next storm as to how we notify people of what to expect in a storm such as that, a top 10 storm. Uh through the chair to the city manager, do you know where we are with that, Mr. Manager, at this point with the new uh alert system, we'll call it,

Mr. Manager? uh through the chair to the council. We actually just uh I actually executed the contract yesterday. Excellent. Um so our hope is that in the next week or two we can be able to work with the company to get this up and running and launched. Uh so our hope is to get it as soon as possible. The the commissioner Goodwin Mercy Communications uh he knows the the urgency behind this. Uh just just today I text him to to say where you know get make sure that you push the vendor to get this going. uh they're going to work as extremely hard as possible to get this activated and ready to launch as soon as possible. But the good sign is we executed it yesterday, so we're ready to to get to work and get this launched hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Thank you.

Well, that's great news. I appreciate that, Mr. uh Mr. Manager. And again, thank you, Mr. Commissioner, for being in here today and handling the questions. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Is that it? No, Mr. Manager.

To the chair. through Jono. I just want to say a few words. I feel like I I have to and I should. Um as the city manager to not only the commissioner, uh thank you for the work that you're doing in the department. You're putting in a lot of hours. You're sleeping in your office. You're bringing pasta and all types of foods for your staff. Uh you're doing a little bit and beyond uh to your team and everyone to make sure that they see you and that they feel supported. Um, and I and I want to give kudos to a lot of the councils here who acknowledge and and support the staff. This this takes a lot of work, but I also want to give um the council a level of of of certainty that this commissioner, myself, we've been working at this hard. Uh, I've given him basically the green light to come to me with what are the needs of the departments. Uh, in this report that you have in front of you, I told him I said give it all. give everything to the council to the public so they know uh because we need to work together uh to build back this department to build the strength of the staffing equipment uh vendors I mean you name it the self sheds the the systems training we have a lot of new staff in the department from the top all the way down from the commissioner to assistant commissioner to the director everybody's new even though they've been in the department m many years they're new in those roles so we've had a lot of change in turnover in those positions. Uh so I want to give a kudos for all of them. They're all invested. They're all thinking creatively how do we solve this because they're hearing they're hearing for every residents. Some of them they're hearing it from their own families at the kitchen table uh uh in terms of some of the issues. Uh but I just want to give a kudos to the team and the department um for not only working hard but also willing to say we need to figure this out. We need to find a better way to serve our residents of our city and for listening to all the residents and all of the counselors uh and through this effort because it like

I like we've said tonight, it takes a collective effort to really be able to do this. So, thanks. Thank you, Commissioner and the team for the great work you're doing. Thank you, Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And um I want to begin by thanking my colleagues for uh well-rounded oversight on this particular matter. Um, I want to state that I appreciate the front face that the commissioner has put forward on this issue. Um, and I also want to acknowledge the daunting task ahead of our city employees and the focus of contract with us. I think it's just like anything else. um when it's a task that's very difficult and there's a lack of resources, there's a last lack of infrastructure, um perhaps folks are going to just do the best they can in the in the time that they have and as a consequence, we don't have a um top-notch snow operations in the city of Worcester at this time. That being said, Mr. chairman. Um what we do know is that a number of folks are reporting and stating that they do not feel that they're getting a fair return their tax dollars in terms of service provision during snow operations. I'm not going to sit here and simply say um you know people need to shovel better, shovel more often, shovel higher and harder. Um park differently perhaps. Um as mentioned by my colleague, we have a lot more vehicles. We may we wave minimum parking requirements uh for housing needs and priorities. So there's a confluence of factors at place. And I can tell you this, Mr. Chairman, the one thing I will say, I've seen neighbor to neighbor helping each other shoveling. I've seen neighbor to business. I've seen business to neighbor and business to business and stranger to stranger. Um in terms of shoveling and snowplowing and snowblowing and all of those things, Mr. chairman. I think that's what makes us a very unique city um that crosses

neighborhoods and intersects on many levels. Mr. Chairman, um that being said, um I've always prided myself on asking the questions for data. Um I'm not quite sure how we're measuring the efficacy of this of these operations. Um there were some questions asked earlier about um you know, the prioritization main streets, bus routes, and specials. I've been calling for this prioritization be to be um documented, outlined, and highlighted. I'm going to make another call by way of a motion for exactly that. Mr. Chairman, I don't simply want to know um where. I want to know the data and the statistics. To what degree are we getting it done? How are we going to measure this? Um I think that all of us appreciate the responsiveness of your crew. Quick um and consistent. Um, but that's not sustainable. It's got to be operational. It's got to be systematic, Mr. Chairman. Um, that being said, you know, it brings me back to my calls for a staffing analysis in this department. Going to reiterate that by way of a order. Um, we need that, you know, hearing as we have over the past. These are what the needs are. We need specifics. We need numbers. We need budgetary implications. Mr. given. Um, it also brings me back to the fact that we do not have a way for the city manager to evaluate his his uh department heads. There's no performance evaluations at this time. Um, I'm not quite sure, you know, how we quantify and qualify our department heads improving, getting better, and having the support of their direct reports. Mr. Chairman, by way of a motion, I'd like an update on that. Um, Mr. Chairman, um question to the charity administration. I know Mr. McGertie is here. I know over the past few years, um we've

often taken money at the request of the manager and moved it when we have not exhausted snow operations budgets. And from what I recall, those are for purchasing of equipment through the chair to the administration. Just want to know if that's a fact. Um and if so, do we have an idea over the last four to five years how much we've spent? on equipment for these operations.

Uh to the chair, to the council, that is a fact. Uh oftent times we ask the department head to provide us a list of equipment uh that they need. Um and this council body supports that and they worked through in terms of doing that. I know in the past couple of years there was challenges or concerns uh in terms of what the utilization of what the equipment they were going to purchase and items were held and it put us in a very tough position to go and get these equipments in time for this the the the operations because some of these equipments when we're allocating the funding let's say today they may not get here for for the for next year's storm. They sometimes may take 12 to 18 months to get here. And so we got to be ahead of the game in ordering some equipment and and and especially the larger equipments. Uh but I I I don't know Tim if you have exact numbers. We can be come back with a report and exact numbers, but we have been uh finding ways to utilize the current existing dollars of of the DPWs snow operations any leftovers to be able to put back into the department for or even sometimes free cash dollars. We utilize that to uh also provide for for additional equipment. through chair of the administration. Um how will the council and the public have an idea of um the extent to which we are using the resources that we have purchased and are available? You mentioned earlier that there's some uh equipment that has not been used um due to lack of staffing. So um how can you report out on that through the chair? uh through the chair. The only time that equipment isn't used is if we don't have the manpower uh with the the appropriate licenses to to power that equipment. But I will share with you that uh every piece of equipment that we have that we have people to be able to operate is being used. Um we are uh implementing the brine program which is brand new for us but that has already been deployed.

Uh we're crawling right now before we can walk and then and then run. But every piece of equipment, whether it's uh water equipment where the folks haven't been out doing a water main break, whether it's sewer equipment, same thing. Uh or or plowing equipment and the streets and sanitation, it's being deployed when we have the uh the personnel with appropriate licenses to be out there.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. By way of an order, I would just like to report back um on that data um uses of equipment over the last 5 years. um money is expended and transferred over to um purchase set equipment. Um I think the commission hit the nail on the head when we have enough people. I want to know when we don't have enough people. What's the percentage of equipment that's being used? Mr. Chairman, and I'd like a staff and analysis to go over that as well. Mr. Chairman, through the chair administration, um what is the overlap between mass DOT and the city um in instances as relates to snow operations or is there any? uh through the chair. I will uh again thank Mass DOT for sharing their resources when they have them available. Um thanks to the the communications between the city manager and uh Commissioner Guliver of Mass DOT. Uh the Mass DOT the past two storms has reached out and any resources that they have available that they're not deploying on their state roads. uh the the first storm, the the the major storm, we had six pieces of equipment and the most recent storm, Friday into Saturday, they shared four pieces of equipment. So, they have their roads that they're responsible for and they deploy any resources that they need on those roads. The only overlap per se is when they share resources that they're not using that we can deploy on our city streets.

Thank you to the chair. Has there been any um strategic exchanges as relates to snow operations from Mass DOT in the city of Worcester? And is there a potential for that through the chair commissioner? The administrator Sure. or to the city manager?

Uh through the chair uh again the the conversations that I've had with the district 3 director um Barry Laurian who has been very helpful uh he is uh sharing with us the equipment that's available. And we also had uh when we were looking at the brine system, Mass DOT was very helpful uh to to bring us out to their Sterling Depot and show us the brine system that they're using. So they were sharing their their best practices and we ended up buying the same system that Mass DOT uses. So there is collaboration there. Uh just like the city doesn't have extra resources nor does Mass DOT to be able to share with us. uh but they have the past two storms those resources that they're not using they've shared with us.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. You know again the city folks that live here they want accountability from us as a city as a collective as some of my colleagues have mentions but you can't have that once again without measurables. Um I would like to see um if there's any strategic um exchange that can occur between mass DOT outside of adding resources. Um, is there a um a pool of thought or strategy, Mr. Chairman? And by way of a motion, I would like to make a motion on order uh that the city explore the feasibility of that, Mr. Chairman. Um, prioritization of our our um the three the three domains there um specials,

mains, and busers,

mains, whatever. um through the charity administration, to what degree of executing those priorities is altered based on 311 or city council uh outreach? And the reason I'm asking that is is in my imagination um there's a strategy in place and then perhaps we're going all over the place for all these other reasons which are real, legit, and could be life- saving. But through the chair to the administration, could you qualify that for me? Uh the chair during an active storm we are following the protocols that have been established namely doing those mains and those bus routes and those specials uh and then when those are in uh the condition where we can leave those and go out to the side streets or going out to those side streets. Uh the one thing that we try to avoid doing is during a storm when we have a request for a certain street is to pull resources from their prescribed routes to go to those different requests uh for service. The time to do that is after the storm is under control and we've got our our primary roads uh which are most important for emergency services. When we've got those established and under control, then we can start chasing the the request, the 311 work orders. Uh but that typically happens the next day or days after.

Thank you. Um Mr. Chairman, it's been mentioned our three deck neighborhoods could be problematic. Um certainly the challenges of those densely populated uh communities are significant. That being said, um you know, I've been in the Burn Code Hills, they look pretty good. You know, you go Vernon Hill, Grafton Hill, Belmont Hill, not so great. Um and so part of that prioritization is important. And and in the report that I requested, I would like that outlined and how is that executed? Um because folks want to know, there's questions being asked by district c two district councils and at large counselors as to you know why is the snow being removed over here and not over here. Um you know and again the responsive to the city councilors is great. Um but I I'd like to see that um impact on the business quarters. I know I work with councelor Bada um as it relates to the canal district um etc. your inspectors. Um, how are they prioritizing the places to to go and review through the chair? Um, because you've heard about schools, we've heard about intersections and crosswalks. How is that even it? It just seems very overwhelming. How is that actually executed? Is there a technology component that we can use? Is there um any AI projection that we can use? Um, what can we do differently there in your research? What's the evidence-based uh solutions through the chair to the administration or the commissioner?

Mr. Commissioner, through the chair, just for clarification, are you talking about when it comes to snow removal processes?

Um through the chair, uh one of our priorities is to u to work on snow removal in those areas that are most impactful to businesses. Uh areas that don't have vehicles parked on the side of the road. For example, uh shortly after uh the snowstorm, we took the the snowblower that's the size of this table and we were removing snow on Shrewsbury Street. Uh beyond that, we went into uh one of the the next areas was Water Street and around Polar Park. Uh certainly uh the canal district has a lot of side streets. Uh it's a monumental effort to be able to coordinate to have both city trucks with operators uh loaders or the snowblower and private contractors to be able to come in when we're not fighting an additional storm uh to be able to coordinate those efforts. And I will share that the uh the snowblower when we were doing Shrewsbury Street as an example, I was taking videos. The snowblower was filling up our six-heel dump trucks in a matter of 10 seconds and only moving 10 feet. So, when there's 22 22 inches of snow that's moved from a two-lane road to the side of the road, it's a tremendous amount of snow. So, so our priorities to your your specific question were those business district areas where there were not cars on the street. Uh beyond that, what we've been doing is, for example, on Hamilton Street, we worked with 311 to be able to establish uh no parking uh on those nights that we were going to be removing snow from Hamilton Street and uh Grafton Street uh so that we could deploy those those resources in a safe manner.

You have two minutes. Thank you. And through the chair, to the commissioner. Um who do you directly report to? I directly report to the city manager and through the chair to the administration or the commissioner. Um it was mentioned before that you know this was this this report um had a wish list that's my words um but a list of needs uh through the chair to the to the commissioner. Is that something that you do during budget time as well? Um is this the only rendition of what's needed by your department as relates to snow operations through the chair. Commissioner through the chair. Are you referring to the report about

Yeah, either. We can refer to both of them so we don't have to go back and forth. Either one. Is is there an additional um sort of um assessment of the needs for snow operations outside of this that you have provided over the last year to the city manager?

Uh through the chair. Uh this list uh on the the the major report uh identifies those areas that we identified last year and we worked to uh to recover those those operations, those facilities and certainly those are conversations that are ongoing with the city manager's office because a lot of these have uh have needs that are very expensive. For example, um when we made our request last year for our capital, we had a building that didn't have appropriate heat in it. It had no heat in it. So, I couldn't What? What had no heat? I couldn't hear. Uh our our sign shop Okay.

Um had no heat in it. So, that was something that was part of a request that we put through for capital. Uh so we were able to put heat in that building so that those folks that are working in there uh can make the uh the vinyl stick to the aluminum so they can create those signs. Uh the lighting in the garage was another need. So that was another capital request that I worked through the city manager's office to be able to uh provide appropriate lighting so those mechanics can work safely. Um and then there's the needs for the salt sheds. We uh we restored the salt sheds with uh under the direction of an engineering company, but we did that with the resources in our own DPW, saving the city tens of thousands of dollars. So, these are ongoing conversations. These are ongoing major needs and uh that those conversations happen not only in the budget process, but also throughout the year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. you know, when you look at this um again, I'm not just focused on this past uh um storm. Uh the folks that have been here over the years, we know we've we've had this issue. Council Bergman's led on this um for less significant storms than this, and there was um a lot of uh concerns from the community. That being said, when you talk about salt sheds falling apart, uh the weather monitoring system is still being fixed. The brine system is now coming up. Um, vehicles being retrofit fitted are finally ready to be deployed. Um, consultation with UMass, salt spreaders not being cal calibrated in years. It it it causes me to question, Mr. Chairman, um, what's been going on in this department. Um, I think that, um, we could benefit um, from an outside consultant as relates to snow operations. Mr. Chairman, I'm make a motion that way. Um, and you know, this is about safety. This is about good neighbors. And I want to end with that, Mr. Chairman. Um, I'm not going to simply say once again, um, that folks are just throwing things in the road. Um, you know, snow in the road. Um, I've seen a a uh community come together. I've seen the council and the residents and the city manager and the departments do the best that they can in this moment uh with the resource provided but the resources have been lacking Mr. Chairman and I want to see data and I hope that the that the appropriate committee provides the appropriate level of oversight um so we can hold all each one another accountable. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Council Tumi.

Thank you Mr. Chair. I rise for uh clarification. Uh there was a question about uh where hydrants were etc. Right on the city web page uh if you go into wistera.gov and then look click on departments and then click on water sewer water and sewer operations. There is a section called hydrants and catch basins where is listed also the adopt a hydrant program and then clear a catch basin and right there on the page is a map that you can click you can make it larger you can go to your own neighborhood your own street and find out where every hydrant is and where every catchbas so that you're aware of where they're a where they are. Um, I think that's a great tool and I, you know, we we already had the information. You just have to look for it. So, I think making sure that we have the link out there in public, maybe do a Facebook post, uh, on that saying this is the link to get there um, will be very beneficial to everybody. So, I want to thank the uh, administration for having the foresight to have put that map out there. So, thank you.

Thank you. Uh, councelor Bada, you all set? Okay. So send those items to public works. Thank you, Commissioner. And thank you again for the opportunity uh to hear uh the the frustrations of the community which we understand and we're striving every day to improve our operations and bring in the equipment and re-evaluate what we're doing so that we can better serve the city. So thank you for the opportunity. Okay, send those public works. All those in favor opposed. We're on uh 8.13A transformation information communication rel to the retention and turnover rate to the police department. Is that the public safety? Council Tumi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before doing that, um I think it's really important that we um talk about uh the home rule petition that we had sent to the legislature. um is actually we sent that we voted that in council March 26th of 2024 and um it's actually still in committee. It was held over. It should have been you know uh acted on in December and it was held over till March 18th. So we're talking something that we sent in um March 26th and it's going to be two years now um till this this and it's been extended. So I think it's really important especially considering the fact that the information that we have in this report um we have to recognize that we have close to 60 officers will have served 32 years in the next in the spring class and the fall class that'll be eligible for retirement. That's 60 people. We currently have in the in the in the current class, it's my understanding, uh 27 um uh recruits and one lateral transfer for this current class. So, I think it's really important that we as a body um communicate with the delegation. Thank uh Senator Moore and and and Senator uh Representative King, I'm sorry, uh Representative OD uh for uh advocating and for putting this forward. Um but I think we also need to let the committee uh members know um how important this is and how critical this is because we're not getting the numbers of people. We used to get thousands of people who applied for civil service. Now we get only several hundred. Um, and then by the time you get through everything, we we we don't have that many people uh in a class and we need to we should be

doing classes of 40 or more to be able to try to stup. So, um if we could through um a motion um uh draft a letter from this council um asking for consideration and making sure that we move forward with this and how critical it is because of these potential retirements. That would be very helpful. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. to send out the public works. No, public safety.

I'm sorry, public safety and u motions and the also off the motions from uh the public works um committee. All those in favor? Oppose? So ordered and chief, thank you. We are on 830 A transformation information communication to the borrowing for the DCU special tasks accordance with Massachusetts General Law 422 the acts of 2006 questions we can file that all those in favor opposed okay we have finance items 8 835 A through H 836 A through C 8.37 A through B. Motion is adopted on the roll call. Roll call.

Councelor Bergman. Yes. Councelor Bada. Yes. Counc. Yes. Councelor Solo. Yes. Councelor King. Council King. Mr. Chairman, which item is this, please? The finance items. Yes. Council Mitra. Yes. Council. Yes. Councelor Rivera. Yes. Councelor Rosen. Yes. Council Tumi. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. Okay. We are on transmitting information communication of the American Rescue Plan Act funding. Senate the ML and thank you for the update and there's no extra money. Not yet anyways. Okay. MLO. All those in favor opposed to make information communication an update on several updates from the administration. Okay. So uh first one is transmitting information communication rel to the plans to repair federal plaza garage located at 57 main street. The motions um put that out to traffic and parking. All those in favor postal order audit. Next item is transmitting information communication road with the planning and design improvements on Newton Square and Highland Street. Send out the traffic and parking.

Chairman I want to mention there's a meeting tomorrow night at High School regarding this. So for those interested for those interested that would be important meeting for those to to attend 6 o'clock 6 o'clock at Dory High School at Dory High School one of the guidance rooms I'm sure you'll find it once you get in the building. Okay tomorrow night involves Newton Square redesign. Thank you.

Those in favor post so ordered. We have transformation information communication rel to the city senior workoff tax abatement program for the MO. All those in favor opposed. Transformation information communication concerning plans to remove invasive plant species in the city referred to urban technology innovation environmental committee. All those in favor opposed so ordered. Next is transmitting information relative to the number of um potholes related calls received by 311 since the beginning of the 311 program. Conserve the public works. All those in favor of post ordered. Transmitting information communication relates concerning the feasibility of installing uh water bubbles to the city's parks that priorities recreation with the locations referred to veteran memorials and parks. All those in favor opposed. So ordered. We are on to be on the roll call. Amended chapter 13 the revised owners of 2008 to provide anticap parking in front of 58 Province Street. Roll call. Councelor Bergman,

yes. Council Bada, yes. Councor Konamo, yes. Baso, yes. King, yes. Vitra, yes. Council, yes. Rivera, yes. Rosen, yes. Tumi, yes. Mayor Petty, yes. Motion to adjourn. Those in favor so awarded. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, what do a suspension? Okay, we do a suspension. We need a roll call. Roll call. Councilor Bergman. Yes. Council Bada. Yes. Councilor Economo. Yes. Councilor Folo. Yes. Councilor King. Yes. Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Aita. Yes. Councelor Rivera. Yes. Councelor Rosen. Yes. Councelor Tumi.

Yes. Mayor Petty. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And um this will be real quick. Um this just came to me from our staff that there's a number of Black History Men month events occurring including on February 11th. Um, Mr. Chairman, I just like a an order asking the city manager, they already have it up on the website um that if they could promote that um through their social media. Um, what's the one on the 11th? What is it? Sorry. Do you have the one on the 11th? What is it?

Oh, sorry. February 11th is uh Echoes of Hope anchored in Resilience Living Church of Worcester and Aferal Beach Dance Class at the Worcester Public Library. There's a ton of them. the 11th, the 12th, the 18th, the 20th, the 21st, um the 24th, um the 26th, and the 28th there's a celebrate Black History Month with the Worcester branch andAACP at the YW from 11 to 2. And then the last event of February 28th, that evening, 5:30 courage to remember from Royal Route to Living Legends um at uh the Performing Arts Center in Holy Cross. Mr. chairman and I would only ask in addition to that um if we could somehow emp um emphasize somewhere on the city website as well in social media city social media um Worcester Black History Trail and the contributions of Professor Dwin. I like to see that annually as well as the Worcester Black History Project um and their associated activities. Um there's currently um which was we went over with the um the the arts allocations. There's two um items that were there that were funded by the city of Worcester. We could also um emphasize those. Um one of which is the um the uh um arts arts celebration over at Worcester Arts. Uh the mayor attended that event. That's there for the entire month. uh if we could kind of highlight those and pop those out intermittently throughout the month uh would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Those in favor post so motion to adjurnn. All those in favor post soed.